Response to the Issue Paper - Australian Law Reform Commission’s Review of Human Tissue Laws

The Victorian Cancer Biobank (VCB) has submitted a comprehensive response to the Australian Law Reform Commission’s review of Human Tissue Laws (HTA), advocating for reforms that better support ethical, equitable, and impactful research. 

The Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) has been asked to inquire into human tissue laws on matters including:  

• Donation, retrieval and transplant of human cells, tissues and organs 

• Consent arrangements 

• Regulation of ‘schools of anatomy’ and donation for education purposes 

• Frameworks across all Australian jurisdictions relating to donation and retrieval of cells, tissues and organs from living and deceased persons 

• Cost recovery, financial and other considerations relating to manufacture and provision of tissue  

• Equity and ethical approaches to improving access to cell, tissue and organ transplantation 

• Contemporary and emerging technologies and practices 

• International experience and approaches  

The ALRC released an issue paper in May 2025 for seeking advice through public submission.  

Our submission focused on the use of human tissue and human tissue laws in Australia for health and medical research, particularly cancer. We also recognised the importance of human tissue laws in enabling the work we do; in safeguarding the interests of Australians; and in ensuring strong public trust in healthcare and research. 

As a state-funded research infrastructure supporting over 350 research projects, VCB calls the reform to: 

• Seek stronger consultation with the biobanking sector and increase relevance of HTAs for biobanking and research purposes  

• aim for establishing national HTA or significantly increasing consistency across jurisdictions (e.g. tissue definitions, cost recovery for biobanking)  

• increase equitable participation in biobanking and access to tissues for research (e.g. mandate the creation of a national biobank registry and tissue access framework, enabling researchers to locate and ethically access samples across jurisdictions) 

• enable the increase of biobanking activities and tissue availability for research, including better definition of tissues, flexible usage of tissue for ethical research, permitting reasonable cost recovery of biobanking for better sustainability.  

VCB’s recommendations aim to ensure that human tissue laws evolve alongside scientific innovation, enabling researchers to ethically access the materials they need to improve health outcomes for all Australians. 

📄 Read the full submission here
📬 For media enquiries, contact Dr. Wayne Ng at wayne.ng@cancervic.org.au