Your Easy Guide to Clinical Studies

Collection and storage containers are required biobanking material.

 

How to best COLLECT Biological Material (BM) depends on the:

• Type of sample (e.g. tube for blood, swabs for saliva)
• Sampling population (e.g. the use of children saliva swabs for children and infants)
• Transport of sample and timing of analysis (e.g. ACD is preferred over EDTA if samples are shipped and processed the following day)
• Planned sample processing (e.g. additives needed to extract / preserve tissue, cells or molecules, volume required to perform cell isolation)
• Storage space (e.g. direct freezing of long saliva swabs or cryotubes filled with passive drool)
• Planned downstream analysis (e.g. additives to stabilize the RNA molecule)

 

How to best STORE BM depends on the:

• Type of sample (e.g. cryovials for liquid samples, cassettes for FFPE tissue)
• Planned storage temperature (containers and labels must remain stable at low temperatures and during long term storage (e.g. non-porous plastic, LN2 compatible)
• Planned downstream sample analysis (e.g., RNA samples stored frozen at −20 °C or −80 °C to prevent degradation)

Based on your planned study, select collection and storage containers (if separate from collection containers) that guarantee the required quality (e.g. stability of molecules) and stability (e.g. for long-term storage) of your Biological Material (BM).

 

The aim is to protect:

• The environment, such as staff and donors (e.g. spillage and leak proof)
• The preservation of the BM characteristics of interest

 

In multicentre studies, the material used to collect and store BM (e.g. tubes, containers, labels and solutions) should be standardized. This guarantees the comparable handling of BM including analytical results. Collection and storage containers can be prepared and shipped to sites in the form of ready-to-use kits.

 

In your study budget, include the costs for collection and storage containers, including shipment container costs.

The Swiss Biobanking Platform (SBP) can provide you with support on this topic.

SBP Documents

SOPs, Forms and Templates – see in particular

• 7.2 Collection of biological material and associated data
• 7.7 Storage of biological material