How are the samples stored?

Samples are dealt with when they arrive at the laboratory to extract cells that are important for future research.

Cells are stored at extremely low temperatures (-198°C) in a special liquid nitrogen freezer. Cells can be kept alive for many years without being significantly affected.

DNA and RNA (biomolecules) are extracted from cells and aliquoted based on the amount of biomolecule obtained from the extraction. The tubes are frozen at -80°C.

There are approximately 30,000 test tubes containing frozen cells in the biobank’s sample collection.

Serum is divided into 1–4 tubes of approximately 1 ml and frozen at -80°C. There are around 4,600 serum tubes in our freezers.
Cerebrospinal fluid is divided into 1–2 tubes and frozen at -80°C. There are about 500 tubes containing cerebrospinal fluid.

The freezer location (freezer/shelf/box/position) is recorded in the FreezerPro lab data system, and here Sofia can be seen sorting tubes according to the given position.