The Centre for Tissue Engineering provides more than 15 000 tissue allografts per year to hospitals and clinics across South Africa.
State-of-the-art Facilities
The CTE’s facilities have been designed and built for the careful and controlled processing of musculoskeletal tissue allografts. All musculoskeletal tissue recovered is processed at the Centre for Tissue Engineering – Bone Bank in certified clean-room facilities at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), situated in Pretoria.
Processing Teams and Technicians
The CTE utilizes highly skilled and trained technicians to process the tissue. These technicians are trained in-house and work in teams to produce these bone allografts. Processing staff fulfill the Bone Bank’s obligation to the donor by respectfully maximizing each donation and simultaneously producing quality and safe allografts that surgeons and recipients trust.
Strict processing procedures are used by the bone bank to ensure quality and safe tissue grafts for use in transplantation. Extensive serology tests for infectious diseases such as HIV, Hepatitis B & C and syphilis are performed on all donors that are procured by the CTE. Each donor is thoroughly evaluated by pre-selection criteria. The tissue bank’s Medical Director reviews all donor information such as, consent forms, tissue recovery documents, serology and microbiology results.
