What to check before your samples cross a border
More research programmes now touch more than one country. A trial site in Germany, a partner lab in the US, and your core storage partner in the UK. Where biological samples are involved, that raises questions most single-country storage arrangements were never built to answer.
Your current setup may not adequately navigate the complexities of different country regulations or border restrictions. And what happens if temperatures fluctuate?
Here’s what to ask so that you can make sure you remain compliant, that you’re minimising those unnecessary 'cryo miles' - the environmental and financial cost of shipping samples further than they need to go - and that your samples stay at the temperature you need them to.
Where are your samples actually allowed to reside?
Regulatory requirements for sample storage vary by region, and what's compliant in the UK isn't automatically compliant in the EU or the US. If your study has EU participants, for example, there may be a requirement or simply good practice for samples to stay within the EU rather than crossing back to the UK.
Before you commit to a storage arrangement, check whether it can flex to where your samples legally need to sit, rather than where it's easiest for the provider to keep them.
What's your plan if one site is out of action?
If your current storage is single-site, it's worth asking your provider what happens to your samples if their facility is unavailable for a week, a month or longer. The answer should be more specific than just 'we have procedures in place'. Having a second site ready to take over can make all the difference.
How many suppliers are you managing?
It's common for organisations working across borders to end up with a UK provider, a separate EU provider, and sometimes a US one too, each with their own contract, their own compliance paperwork, and their own point of contact. It's manageable but it's overhead that doesn't add anything to the science.
How are you reducing the 'cryo miles'?
The advantage of having a supplier with a footprint on the ground in each region is that your samples don't need to be transported across borders to be looked after. Fewer border crossings means fewer cryo miles, less risk to the sample, and less cost to you.
What would it mean for you if you had one supplier relationship to cover more than one region, with the same standards applied throughout?
One foot in the UK, another in Europe and a third in the US
Before you picture a tripod-like creature, let us explain. Since joining the Azenta group, UK Biocentre now has local resources in Griesheim, Germany, and access to Azenta's sites in the US. It means that as well as our existing UK capacity (with our high-throughput sample processing, automated biobanking, DNA and RNA extraction, genotyping and sequencing, dedicated courier services and secure inventory management) we now have additional capability and capacity overseas.
👉 GxP-compliant storage wherever your regulatory framework requires it
👉 Business continuity and disaster recovery options built on more than one site
👉 Secure, certified sample transportation and logistics to move material between sites without it changing hands
👉 Sample informatics and LIMS solutions, so your data travels with your samples
It's like having a passport for your samples
If you have samples in Europe, they can be processed and stored locally in Griesheim, with the same standards of traceability and integrity you'd expect from UK Biocentre. No need to ship everything back to the UK.
If you're a US-based company wanting a European solution, that's now available through UK Biocentre's own facilities, without setting up a separate contract with a separate provider.
If you're a UK or European organisation that needs processing done in the US, the same applies in reverse. It's covered by your existing relationship with us.
If your research has any international dimension (a multinational trial, a genomics programme with sites outside the UK, or simply a "what's our plan B" question from a funder) you just need to have the one conversation with us.
If any of this is relevant to a programme you're planning, then let's have a conversation about what EU/global storage or multi-site resilience could look like for your programme, we'd love to hear from you.
Get in touch with our team.