Biobank Uppsala, a leading Scandinavian biobank, has reported on its use of 2D-coded sample storage tubes, racks and caps from Micronic to provide traceable, high integrity storage of blood fraction samples (mainly serum and plasma).

Uppsala Biobank began its operations in September 2008 and is a collaboration between Uppsala County Council, as represented by Uppsala University Hospital, and Uppsala University (Faculty of Medicine). Uppsala Biobank was founded to provide an organised central collection of samples that are gathered, stored and registered for the purpose of being conserved for scientific studies, treatment, and investigations.

Maria Storgärds, Project Leader at Uppsala Biobank commented "We have about 80,000 aliquots stored today. Our collection is increasing by approximately 4000 aliquots per month indicating the number of stored samples will be at least doubled within 2-4 years." She continued "Our aim is to ensure blood, plasma and serum samples are processed from patient to cold storage in our biobank in less than 4 hours. However in a 4-hour period we seldom have 12 new samples (96 aliquots) to store. Because of this the ability of the Micronic Capcluster system to securely cap a single tube, a row of tubes or even a complete 96-tube rack in a single action perfectly suited us'. She added 'The low profile of Micronic 96-tube storage racks and compact size of their 0.50ml 2D-coded tubes has allowed us to optimise use of our valuable freezer space and usefully is also fully automation compatible'.

Micronic 0.50ml sample storage tubes are manufactured from medical grade polypropylene, according to US and European Pharmacopoeia tests, in a classified Class 7 cleanroom environment ensuring they exhibit absolute product consistency, near zero contaminants and are RNase/DNase free. The tubes resist many organic solvents (DMSO, methanol, dichloromethane), may be autoclaved, withstand gamma rays used for sterilisation and can be repeatedly freeze-thawed. A unique 2D code non-detachable laser etched onto the bottom of each tube provides an easy and unambiguous means of storing and identifying samples. The optimised internal shape of each Micronic sample storage tube ensures the lowest possible dead volume and maximum sample recovery.