Each PHCbi MDF-U442 is equipped with a tailor-made storage system
PHC Europe B.V. continues to increase the strength of the PHC brand in the UK and the company’s relationship with the National Blood Service (NBS), with the provision of 41 x MDF-U442 freezers for the new Test Assessment Facility (TAF), located at its Blood Centre in Manchester.
The National Blood Service is an integral part of the UK’s National Health Service, delivering blood products and tissues throughout England and Wales, as well as performing vital research into issues concerning blood matters.
The aim of the new TAF is to evaluate the specificity of vCJD screening assays and assess the potential for impact of each test upon the donor population. In order to achieve this, the NBS are preparing a Test Assessment Panel, consisting of 10,000 donations which will be irreversibly anonymised and sub-aliquoted into deep well archive racks. The donations will consist of 5,000 UK donations and 5,000 US donations, with UK staff working alongside their colleagues in the US to achieve this. The samples will be stored frozen until such time that tests become available. They will then be retrieved for use with the test kits. Kits will be sited at Manchester and the NBS staff will perform the evaluations. Once fully stocked, the TAF will have almost 1.5 million aliquots in storage. Each MDF-U442 is equipped with a tailor-made storage system.
Working with PHCbi, we were able to determine the most suitable racking system
Belinda Pelle, Assistant Testing Manager at the Manchester site, stated, “The NBS has been working with PHCbi for a long time, and we discussed our requirements for the use of upright freezers as our storage environment of choice. Working alongside Richard Bennett (PHC UK Sales Manager), we were able to determine the most suitable racking system in order to store our samples safely, and for them to be easily retrievable. The storage capacity of the racking system then enabled us to determine the number of freezers that we required. We are very happy with our freezers and the custom-designed racking system, which compliment each other very well. We are now in the process of local validation of the equipment, as well as continuing to prepare the TAF for implementation.”
Richard Bennett added, “We have a successful business relationship with the National Blood Service and they have many MDF Freezers, MCO Incubators and MPR Refrigerators in use in their centres across the UK. For this project it was important for us to be able to work with the customer and provide the ideal solution for their large-scale storage needs.”