The International Ancient Egyptian Mummy Tissue Bank at the Manchester Museum as a resource for the palaeoepidemiological study of schistosomiasis

This paper outlines the setting up of the Mummy Tissue Bank at the Manchester Museum as an international research resource, conceived in the context of the worldwide Schistosomiasis Research Project in 1996. It considers the value of such a resource for both ancient and modern studies, with particular reference to the work done at Manchester on ancient schistosomiasis. Immunocytochemical techniques have been developed to be applied to mummy tissue for the first time, and the results may be compared with data from the modern Egyptian population. The Tissue Bank facilitates various research projects, and it is hoped that the work on schistosomiasis will provide a model for future palaeoepidemiological research into other diseases.

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