Monthly Newsletter

Thermo-conductive CoolRacks^TM from BioCision introduce critical reproducibility and instant organisation into benchtop sample cooling and freezing for the clinical, diagnostics, pharmaceutical, biotech and CRO markets.

Reproducible sample collection, handling and storage is critical to obtaining meaningful experimental and clinical trial data, but often simple procedures such as benchtop sample cooling, freezing and snap-freezing can vary from sample to sample, researcher to researcher, clinic to clinic, day to day. CoolRack thermo-conductive tube, plate and sample holders standardise temperature control and hence they are rapidly setting a new bar for laboratory and clinical sample management.

Precision-engineered and manufactured from novel patent-pending thermo-adaptive alloy, CoolRacks quickly equilibrate all wells to within 0.1ºC of the source temperature. CoolRacks are portable, versatile and can be easily implemented in any procedure requiring ice, dry ice, liquid nitrogen, water bath, heat block or any other laboratory temperature source. All samples are kept upright at exactly the same temperature regardless of well position, and racked samples can be moved from ice to water bath en masse, giving a rapid identical temperature shift for all samples. In addition to eliminating temperature variability, CoolRacks are designed to provide stable, compact and indexed organisation, saving valuable time and reducing user errors commonly associated with directly immersing tubes or plates in ice, dry ice or other sources.

For ice-free portable cooling and freezing, CoolRacks can be paired with CoolBox^TM which utilises cartridges to maintain cooling and freezing temperatures on the benchtop, in biosafety cabinets or in GMP suites where ice could be a potential source of contamination.

Snap-freezing or freezing samples to dry ice or liquid nitrogen temperatures has never been easier. When using a CoolRack for these procedures, samples are not directly immersed into dry ice, dry ice/alcohol slurries or liquid nitrogen, minimising user errors, accidents, temperature profile variability, damage and contamination from alcohol or liquid nitrogen immersion.

CoolRacks can be used for many portable temperature applications, as Rolf Ehrhardt, BioCision CEO explains: ‘In the context of the worldwide effort to standardise common sample-handling processes,^1,2 CoolRacks introduce simplicity and reproducibility to a variety of basic research and clinical protocols involving temperature-sensitive biologics, vaccines, RNA, DNA and enzymes.'

CoolRacks are available in a comprehensive range of formats for use with cryo tubes, microfuge tubes, PCR strips and plates, and many other consumables, and can be easily integrated into any process or diagnostic or clinical kit. In conjunction with CoolBox, CoolRacks can also be used for short-term sample transfer or transportation, as the CoolBox maintains the temperature of CoolRack for up to eight hours. Call or email BioCision or one of their distributors for a Demo CoolRack.

1 e.g. see NIH/NCI Office of Biorepositories and Biospecimen Research: http://biospecimens.cancer.gov/default.asp

2 Rolf Ehrhardt, ‘Preanalytical sample handling protocols can advance personalized medicine and science', Drug Discovery News, June 2010.