Boxing clever: Biophile's storage and retrieval system.

One of the remaining challenges for high-throughput automation comes at the beginning of many processes — the storage and retrieval of samples. Keeping track of samples can be a major headache for many labs, with researchers often spending hours locating a single specimen.

A pioneer in this field is Biophile, based in Charlottesville, Virginia. Biophile has developed a fully automated storage and retrieval system, which operates at temperatures down to the −80 °C required for storing materials such as RNA and tissue samples. The unit has built-in robotics that pick from a rotating vertical stack of almost 1,000 microplates or racks of cryogenic vials.

This month, the company is launching its individual vial retriever, which can automatically re-rack, scan, weigh and sort vials. The retriever will have a capacity of over 22,000 cryovials, which it can select and deliver at an average rate of 200 per hour. “This could double the productivity and rate of working with samples,” says Sean Graves, the company's vice-president for technology.

The storage system is designed to be compatible with a wide range of equipment, and the vial retriever is designed to work with LIMS and to take samples directly to workstations by a conveyor system. As with LIMS, the demand for automated storage systems will be increased by regulatory pressure for drug companies and research labs to maintain the security of medical specimens for long periods of time.

“Automated storage and retrieval systems is the clear application that's going to surprise everyone,” says Robin Felder, president of the Association for Laboratory Automation. “It's going to surprise everyone because you're going to have to have this.”