New guidelines for the collection and use of human tissues for research will impose new requirements on researchers to seek ethical approval and patient consent. This extends to the use of surplus tissue, such as breast cancer excision biopsies, which, until recently, have been regarded as having been 'abandoned' by the patient. This article argues that some of these new constraints provide hurdles to translational research that are unnecessary for patient protection. This is particularly significant when emerging technologies are expected to elicit major advances in clinical cancer research.