Prefabricated Encoders
Cryopreservation tubes are mainly used for transportation and preservation of biological samples in ultra-low temperature refrigerators (-80°C) and liquid nitrogen tanks (-196°C). Most of the general-purpose cryopreservation tubes are arranged in 9×9 or 10×10 format, with a capacity of 2mL or 1.5mL, which cannot be adapted to the batch processing of automated equipment (pipetting workstations, automatic cap closure, automated refrigerators, etc.), and can only be used for the manual pre-processing of samples, which is suitable for the management of small amount of sample storage.
For high-throughput pre-processing of biological samples, only SBS (Society for Biomolecular Sciences) standardized cryopreservation tubes can be used as carriers. This standard, published by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) on behalf of SBS in 2004, governs various characteristics of microtiter plates (and similar biosample carriers), including well dimensions (e.g., diameter, spacing, and depth) as well as microtiter plate characteristics (e.g., size and stiffness) (standardized dimensions of 127.76 mm x 85.48 mm), allowing interoperability between microtiter plates (and similar biosample carriers), instrumentation, and the use of the SBS standard. carriers), interoperability between instruments and equipment from different vendors, globally available laboratory automated processing equipment is designed and manufactured to ANSI/SBS standards.
At present, there are hundreds of domestic and foreign manufacturers producing SBS standard cryotubes, but there are no more than ten manufacturers worldwide that can produce automatic whole plate opener. Many manufacturers understand that the purpose of users choosing SBS standard cryopreservation tubes is for high-throughput sample processing, and they are also actively developing matching automatic whole plate opener. However, the difficulty of development is not only in the structure and debugging of the equipment, the ability to carry out the whole plate switch cap of the cryopreservation tube in the product design, production process, quality control and other aspects of the high requirements, only to ensure a high degree of consistency of the product, in order to complete the 96pcs / 48pcs of cryopreservation tubes dozens of times the switch is as smooth as new, the cap will not fall, and there will be no high and low unevenness. Therefore, only when the product precision and uniformity of the cryopreservation tubes meet the strict requirements, can they be actually adapted to the automatic cap opener, rather than just “looking like” SBS cryopreservation tubes can be used.
The research and development of BANN BM series of automatic whole plate opener took 3 years, during this period, not only the mechanical and electrical structure of the automatic opener is designed and improved, but also in the process of research and development to push back the design of cryopreservation tubes, technology, quality control enhancement and improvement. The mechanical design of the cap snap point of the cryopreservation tube, the production process to keep the tolerance of the inner diameter within ±0.02mm, the algorithm setting of the opening and closing action of the cap, and the tens of thousands of tests in the automated assembly workshop …… a series of standards to meet the final guarantee of the accuracy and stability of the equipment.
Considering the limitations of laboratory space and the actual needs of experimental operations, Byam Bio also continuously optimizes the cap opener, and under the premise of completing the same function, the volume and weight are far better than similar products in the market, and can be put into the biological safety cabinet for operation, without the need to design and customize non-standard equipment. 2023 April, BANN BM series of automatic cap openers and closers have obtained the CE certification, and have been successfully sold to Europe and the United States; in July, finally won the first domestic order, the bidding party is the famous three hospitals in China, the Fifth Hospital. In April 2023, BM series automatic cap opener obtained CE certification and was successfully sold to Europe and the United States; in July, it finally got the first domestic order, and the bidder was the famous three hospitals in China, the Fifth Hospital of CUHK, and BM series of products has become the only domestic whole-plate cap opener for cryopreservation tubes that has realized commercial sales in the market up to now.
The CU5 Biological Sample Bank is the Zhongshan University Precision Medicine Science Center Biological Sample Bank Zhuhai Demonstration Bank was built in 2017, and the type of preservation covers non-infectious clinical samples and marine medicine research samples, and in the future, it will strive to realize the unified processing, centralized management, individualized storage, and resource sharing of biological samples of the Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Bay Area region, and provide medical sample resources for the extensive development of large populations of multi-histology studies, prospective cohort studies, marine medicine special population diseases, etc. to provide medical sample resources. After being approved for the first time in 2018 for the “Approval of China’s Human Genetic Resources Preservation” administrative licensing program, CUHK-5 sample bank will again be approved for this national administrative licensing qualification in 2022. After the approval, the bank will have 11 sample types (urine, feces, saliva, etc.) and sample-related data information (including clinical information, high-throughput sequencing information, and various types of histological information, etc.), instead of only two types of samples, namely, whole blood and tissues.