New sample management system for Bristol Bioresource Laboratory

Bristol Bioresource Laboratories manage the storage of over 2 million biological samples in a mix of ~80 ULT-80°C, 30 -20°C freezers, cryostores and room temperature storage. Samples are kept for long-term storage with ALSPAC samples collected since 1991.

BBL is focused on reducing freezer requirements to meet UoB climate goals. BBL's current storage of samples is inefficient and has been in use since the study started in 1991. The majority of BBL samples are 0.2ml or 0.5ml, stored within a 2ml tube, which is highly space inefficient. New products on the market allow storage of the same volume of sample in a smaller footprint allowing to maximise freezer space and reduce the number of freezers required overall.

BBL wish to change from using standard 2ml screw cap tubes with user generated and printed labels for storage of aliquots to using unique 2D barcoded (on the bottom) tubes The main aim for this is to reduce the volume of space that samples take up within BBL freezers and also to streamline processes. i.e scanning a whole rack of 96 samples can be done in 5 seconds as opposed to minutes and with greater accuracy.