Professor Glyn O. Phillip’s legacy within the IAEA programme on radiation and tissue banking Jorge Morales Pedraza Received: 22 June 2017 / Accepted: 8 August 2017 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2017 Abstract Professor Phillips began his involvement in the implementation of this important IAEA pro- gramme, insisting that there were advantages to be gained by using the ionizing radiation technique to sterilize human and animal tissues, based on the IAEA experience gained in the sterilization of medical products. The outcome of the implementation of the IAEA programme on radiation and tissue banking demonstrated that Professor Phillips was right in his opinion. Keywords Tissue banking Á IAEA Á Ionizing radiation Á Tissue sterilization Á RCA Á ARCAL Introduction The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) programme on radiation and tissue banking has its origins in the IAEA expert group meeting held in 1971 in the Joliot Curie Radiobiology Institute in Budapest, Hungary, with the presence of Professor Glyn O. Phillips, other groups of international experts from different countries and some IAEA representatives. In that meeting, Professor Phillips began his involvement in the implementation of this important IAEA pro- gramme, insisting that there were advantages to be gained by using the ionizing radiation technique to sterilize human and animal tissues, based on the IAEA experience gained in the sterilization of medical products. The meeting successfully convinced the high-ranking IAEA representatives on the importance on the use of this technique for the sterilization of tissues and the IAEA’s started to include the reference to the use of this technique in some official declara- tion. The first move into the field of the sterilization of human and animal tissues came in a symposium on Sterilization of Medical Products and Biological Tissues held in Bombay, India in 1974 with the presence of Professor Phillips, a group of international experts and IAEA representatives (Phillips and Morales 2003). The first vehicle used by the IAEA to increase its involvement in the field of tissue sterilization was the Research Coordination Programme. Interested parties were encouraged to collaborate to study the effects of radiation on human and animal tissues. The outcome of this work was the organization of an IAEA Advisory Group meeting held in Athens in 1976 on ‘The Effects of Sterilizing Radiation Doses Upon the Antigenic Properties of Proteins and Biological Tis- sues’ (Phillips et al. 1978). In retrospect, it can now be realized how historic this meeting was, with pioneers in the broader subject of tissue banking participating: Glyn O. Phillips, Gary E. Friedlander, Kenneth W. Sell, Michael Strong, K. Ostrowski, Sandor Pellet, J. Morales Pedraza (&) Morales Project Consulting GmbH, Jasomirgottstrasse 6, 1010 Vienna, Austria e-mail: jmorales47@hotmail.com 123 Cell Tissue Bank DOI 10.1007/s10561-017-9648-z