Sample management of Covid-19 cryobox tube racks

Ziath reports on the widespread adoption of its DataPaq™ Cube rack reader in Covid-19 testing labs for tracking of sample tubes cryogenically stored in cryoboxes.

Image Credit: Ziath Ltd

Keeping track of large numbers of Covid-19 RNA extraction samples can be an onerous task. Many labs around the world are using 2 ml screw cap tubes with 2D-barcodes on the base for this work, including those laboratories equipped through the successful UN/IAEA supply program.

Screw cap tubes with 2D barcodes are widely available from many different manufacturers and are supplied in cryoboxes which can hold eighty-one 2 ml tubes or up to 100 smaller tubes in a 13 x 13cm square format. Performance optimized for this rack size – the DataPaq™ Cube has pre-loaded sample management templates which can be selected for the 81-, 100-, 121- or 196-tube cryobox formats supplied by various manufacturers.

Special pre-cut “masks” enable the DataPaq™ Cube to firmly hold cryoboxes of different formats and from various suppliers, as these can sometimes differ slightly in their outer dimensions. Reading a full cryobox of 100 Covid-19 sample tubes and decoding their barcodes takes only 1 second for the full rack using Ziath’s latest AI-powered DP5 software. The resultant Covid-19 sample tube barcodes are displayed in tabular format together with a useful image showing the successfully decoded tubes. This important data can be exported as .csv, .png, .txt, .xls, .pdf or Python format to any connected LIMS or inventory management system such as Ziath’s Samples software program.