The Institute of Clinical Pharmacology at Wuppertal provides a central service within Bayer for the storage and analysis of blood samples from clinical studies
Micronic has announced the successful implementation of its unique TraXis sample storage system within the Institute of Clinical Pharmacology (Wuppertal, Germany).
The Institute of Clinical Pharmacology at Wuppertal provides a central service within Bayer for the storage and analysis of blood samples from clinical studies.
With escalating output of clinical samples from research, driven by high-throughput screening, Bayer sought a sample storage solution to replace placing samples in 10ml vials or eppendorf caps secured in dedicated racks and boxes.
To deliver the desired improvements in long term clinical sample storage, Bayer specified that its new system should enable integration within an automated sample processing system and allow 'cherry-picking' access to single sample vials working within a standard 96-well microtitre plate footprint.
The new storage system should provide assured sample traceability and also be able to operate at -80C to ensure minimal long-term degradation of the clinical samples.
After reviewing many of the current sample storage technologies, Bayer decided to implement TraXis as it offered the ability to use high throughput robotics with microtitre plates while also giving access to single samples.
The TraXis 96-tube rack design exactly maps a standard microtitre plate allowing single tube access while also giving the benefit of compact storage for a lot of samples.
Additionally the ability to seamlessly integrate TraXis into a fully automated system including incorporating data into a Lims met Bayer's need for enhanced productivity and computer aided administration of analysis results and sample tracking.
Implementing the unique TraXis tube-coding system has also provided Bayer with significant benefits in terms of assured sample traceability. Michael Zuhlsdorf, head of laboratory at the Institute of Clinical Pharmacology, commented: "we chose Micronic as it was able to supply and support a complete system fulfilling our future objectives for long term storage of clinical samples." The Micronic TraXis system comprises of a uniquely identified tube, a polypropylene 96-tube rack, multi-piercable resealing cap and a range of specially designed readers to allow fast and accurate identification of the TraXis tubes. Manufactured under exacting Class 10,000 clean room conditions from ultra-pure grade polypropylene, TraXis coded tubes provide a unique two-dimensional code precisely located at the bottom of each tube.
As the unique laser encryption code cannot be abraded, fall or be wiped off from the tube it can never produce a false sample identity should the tube need to be recovered from cold storage for consolidation of an analysis result.
Following the implementation of TraXis, Bayer has already begun to see additional benefits.
The multi-piercable seal on individual tubes provided by the chemically resistant TraXis ClusterCap is seen to be ensuring the integrity of blood samples which might have to be retrieved from cold storage after a long period of time.
Looking to the future, Bayer is investigating using the TraXis system to provide the same benefits to its long-term clinical banking of serum, plasma, DNA, and RNA samples.
