tissue samples sent form afar

From: Altig,Kathy (kaltig@swmedctr.com)
Date: Tue Oct 09 2001 - 10:13:57 EST


We have recently been receiving samples from a town far enough away from us
that the samples spend up to 30 or more hours in transit.  We have sent them
RPMI + 10% FCS (and an antibiotic) to place the samples in for transport.
By the time we receive the samples the pleasant fruit punch colored RPMI has
changed to a disgusting lemon yellow (very acidic) and the viability of the
cells has dropped to less than 20%.  What's wrong with this picture?

The samples have been fairly large; do we need to just have them use more
containers and split the sample into smaller portions?  Or is there some
other issue we are missing?

Would someone who has experience in this transport issue please let me in on
the secret to long distance cell viability!
Thanks so very much.

Kathy Altig
Southwest Washington Medical Center
Vancouver, WA



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jan 05 2003 - 19:01:33 EST