Dan Collins is our lead Dangerous Goods Safety Advisor (DGSA) and has been working with the wider team to set up our new biobank services.

Why have we added biobanking to our services?

Dan said: “The opening of our biobank and associated services will help us maintain our excellent growth within the life science industry by providing our customers with a sample storage solution in a climate where lab space is both expensive and in short supply. Our customers asked us for this service, and we have the knowledge, skills and experience required to build this facility for them.”

What has been the process?

“It is quite a long process because we have had to construct the facility within our Cambridge branch and meet the high standards needed to adhere to the compliance side of opening and running a biobank,” said Dan.

Dan and the team had to apply for the relevant Human Tissue Authority (HTA) licences and working with partners the have installed a sample inventory and monitoring software to ensure our customers have full visibility of what they have stored with us and can request retrieval at any time.

Dan continues, “We have built a quality manual and a suite of operating procedures and purchased high-quality equipment.”

Our biobank services include:

• Ultra-low temperature freezer storage space,
• Disaster recovery service,
• Disaster recovery storage space,
• HTA compliant storage, sample management and monitoring systems,
• Cold chain transfer solutions.

Dan has expanded his role to support the biobank services. The reasons behind this as Dan explains. “As Head of Operations for Life Sciences and lead DGSA for many years the role of Designated Individual (DI) seemed a natural fit. As DI I will be responsible for HTA Licenced work, general compliance and overseeing the day to day running of the facility along with Paul Norman who is both our HTA Licence contact and Cambridge Branch Manager.

“It is the DI’s legal duty to ensure that: persons involved in the licensed activity are suitable; suitable practices are used in the licensed activity; and the conditions of the licence are complied with. So I will be consulting with our customers to ensure we meet their requirements, service level agreements whilst remaining compliant.”

At the Northern point of the UK’s Life Science Golden Triangle, Cambridge is renowned for its world-class research institutions and scientific excellence. With a high demand for laboratory space which is greater than its supply, our lab team will be supporting our customers in their continued research, development and the storing of irreplaceable samples that can be used in future studies.