Reorganization of liquid nitrogen cell stocks - (Jun/06/2018 )

Hi all

currently we do not really have an organization in our liquid nitrogen tanks and also the cell line register is not very useful. when you are looking for a cell line to thaw, you have to look through pages of papers in a folder and still the entries are not up to date. everyone has their own working stocks, sometimes there are original tubes around or master stocks. none of them are tested for mycoplasma contamination... when you finally find your tower and rack, you have to look through the whole box, because no vial does have a position indicated... it's a real pain in the butt...

I want to rearrange the whole thing and wanted to ask if someone has a good idea on how to do this. from the organizational point of view and then of course the practical implementation, because we have to take out each tube and rearrange accordingly.

until now I though about doing it step by step. take out a master stock, screen for mycoplasma and create working stocks. will take a lot of time, but I think like this it would be easier and more secure.

how do you usually organize the cell stocks? we want to find a method where the entries remain up to date, because some of our scientists are not too good organized and they may screw the whole rearrangement easily... is there maybe a software you can recommend?

I am very thankful for any inputs

Thanks a lot!

What you are looking for is a LIMS (Laboratory Information Management System/software) - there are some free ones about, but I can't personally recommend anything as I haven't used any of them. You could also use a database or even an excel worksheet, but I would recommend learning about version control (so that you can go back to old versions if someone deletes something accidentally)

Personally I would go for an on-line one, or one based on a dedicated computer set up as close to the LN2 as possible. 

One way to re-organize is to get a separate dewar and racks, then as you update a box, transfer it to the new dewar and put it on the LIMS database. Regular audits of the boxes will also help to keep things organized. One system for this is to seal each box with tape, then re-examine each box and look for open tape at your audit. Those that are still sealed have not changed, so you know they are still the same as before.