----- On Friday, March 10, 2000 10:57 Jim.Houston@stjude.org wrote ----- > > How do you keep track patient inventory within your freezer? > > Do you use an off the shelf package such as Excel or Access > > or is there something else that fits the bill. I had the same questions several months ago. Our lab got a liq.N2 freezer, which can hold more than 6,000 vials (108 boxes in 9 racks). The bad news is that the previous team left a lot of samples in it and inventory was organized on a "cellulose carrier". My first impulse was to copy the original log into Excel spreadsheet and then select important samples by sorting and filtering. Very soon I realized that spreadsheets are not the best choice for this kind of job. The main problem was duplicate entries. For example, if I need to record 10 samples collected from the same patient (1 vial per sample), then I has to duplicate patient's data (name, age, sex, etc.) exactly 10 times. The situation gets worse when each sample is divided into many vials, or when certain samples are propagated in tissue culture and each cellular passage is then returned to the freezer as a new sample. That creates huge number of records related to the same patient making filtering and searching very complicated (complicated for me, of course). After I realized that, I began to look for something ready-to-use. Popular search engines returned surprisingly few relevant links. Here they are: Software packages $1,000 and beyond: http://www.freezerworks.com (Win32, demo available) http://www.chemsw.com/12194.htm (Win32, demo available) http://www.bio.com/home/cayman/software.html (Apple, no demo) http://www.revco-sci.com/catalog/accessories/accessories.htm (DOS, no demo) Under $300 http://www.btinternet.com/~ablumsohn/freez.htm (2 or 3 DOS programs, demo available) http://www.protocol-online.net/cellbio/cell_culture/Cell_perservation.htm (freeware) Commercial packages are very good. FreezerWorks 5.0 in particular. It has very powerful sample tracking capabilities. Unfortunately, spending $1,000 is hard to justify, if the lab processes less then a 100 samples a day. Speaking of other programs, I didn't find what I need (but many may do). FreezerWorks 5.0 uses a tree-view approach to navigate through the data. For example, the address of a sample may look like this: Freezer #2 -> Shelf #5 -> Rack #9 -> Box #12 -> Positions #39-45. MS Access has an ActiveX control, which does the same (sold separately for like a $100). There are also other programs designed for working with tree-structured (dendrite) data. One of my favorite is "Argentum" ($35) http://argentum.rsu.ru/opinions.html. A similar nice package is called "The Brain" ($50) http://www.thebrain.com. "S.T.I.S." from ChemSW is another dendrite organizer designed for sample tracking in a chemical lab. The interface is simply stunning. So is the price tag ($999) http://www.chemsw.com/12194.htm The bad news about tree-organizers is that navigation may be slow. For example, if I expand a tree node depicting a 10x10 box, I get a 100(!) smaller "branches", which means a lot of scrolling. Tree-view organizers are ideally suited for small storage systems, like Dewars. It would be very easy to navigate through branches like this one: Dewar #4 -> container #3 -> cane #2 -> vial #6. Our freezer is simply too big for a dendrite organizer (6,000 vials). In addition to that, the samples we normally store have a somewhat complicated structure. For example, patient "X" may have several tissue and blood samples collected from him (her), then each tissue sample may be harvested several times during propagation in vitro and each cellular passage may be divided into several vials. Cell lines and hybridomas follow the same scheme. So, I decided to make something myself customized for our needs. I spent several days reading "Access 97 Bible" and realized that this problem is not for an amateur. Relational design is relatively simple. The address of a vial (shelf, rack, box, position) is a property of "storage space" and Vial ID is a property of the sample. Then you link samples to addresses though "one-to-many" relationship. The hard part is to put an interface onto the tables. Cross-tab queries and "on event procedure" was far beyond my level. So, I posted my problem to an MS Access news group and one guy kindly agreed to help. He made an extremely convenient interface. I can track samples by cell line, by patient, diagnosis, date, etc. But the best part is that I can actually see the contents of boxes. Graphically! Positions occupied by a given sample are shown in blue and free positions are shown in white. This is an extremely useful feature when one attempts to fill part-full boxes instead of starting new ones. Removed vials leave a lot of "holes" and finding those "holes" was not an easy task when I use a spreadsheet. Now, when I navigate through the freezer I see that many of my boxes have a "moth-eaten" appearance (just like a defragmented file system on a low RAM PC). The program has many other great features, but this posting is already looking like a shameless advertising. If enough people show their interest in this database, I'll ask the author whether he agrees to make some minor adjustments in order to distribute his program as a shareware. What I can offer right now is a bunch of screen shots (100K zip). Thank you for your patience, Yuri Kudinov, postdoctoral fellow SVMC, Immunotherapy lab 201 S.Alvarado St, Ste 312 Los Angeles, CA 90057-2354 -----Original Message----- From: Houston, Jim [mailto:Jim.Houston@stjude.org] Sent: Friday, March 10, 2000 10:57 To: cyto-inbox Subject: N2 Freezer Inventory To those who have liquid N2 freezers: How do you keep track patient inventory within your freezer? Do you use an off the shelf package such as Excel or Access or is there something else that fits the bill. Any response would be appreciated. thanks Jim Houston Coordinator, Flow Cytometry and Sorting Cell and Gene Therapy Program St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Memphis, TN 38105 ph:901-495-2926
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