Questions to consider: deceased donor specimens:

Most donors are aged 60+, many have Type II diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure or other chronic conditions. Many smoke or consume alcohol. Most will have been on palliative care medications, which may include schedule II narcotics, anxiolytics and anti-depressants before they passed.

– What is the highest PMI you can accept for deceased donor specimens?

If you wish to study RNA, you probably need shorter times than if you are studying proteins, for example. Certain organs degrade faster than other organs. What can you find out from the published literature?

It takes time between a donor passing & it being possible to collect tissue samples for your research. Researchers sometimes seem surprised that we can’t obtain specimens sooner than 3 hours, and that such donors are extremely rare. Please consider that the family’s needs need to be taken care of at the hospice or hospital, before paperwork can be completed and transport arranged. If complex preparation protocols (for example, “bread slicing” the brain at 1cm intervals on a teflon coated plate for your histology & RNA preparation) are required, this will also take time. So, if you can go up to 12h (or longer), tissue samples will be much more readily available. We will of course collect according to your exact specifications and preparation protocol, however stringent you require that collection to be- it will simply be slower.