Other than Karolinska institutet, Sweden has six university hospitals: in Uppsala, Umeå, Gothenburg, Malmö and Lund, Linköping and Örebro. All of them have biobanks for storing biological samples.
Each biobank has their own routines and security measures put in place. All six say that they are comfortable with the efficiency of those routines.
A measure which is shared amongst all six is around the clock surveillance by employees who are qualified to deal with any possible issue. Something that was missing at the Neo facility at KI, where the freezer failure occurred during last year’s Christmas holiday.
“You can always get a hold of technicians who can provide their services. We also have yearly rounds, where we go around and check that every freezer is working properly. We also make sure to have the correct contact information for the researchers using the freezers”, says Thomas Ludvigsson, head of facilities at University Hospital of Umeå.
Several of the university hospitals have extra freezers which are kept empty, that may be used for evacuation of samples in case of a freezer failure.
Biobank Väst, located in Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, uses a dual alarm system. During regular working hours alerts are sent to the security team at the hospital. Outside of regular hours, an on call team is used.
“As head of the department, I also have access to a separate alarm that displays the current temperature of the freezers”, says Linda Fröderberg Roth, head of Biobank Väst.
Anna Beskow is section manager at the biobank at Uppsala Clinical Research Center, and has worked with different biobanks for several years. She says that freezer failures happen to all biobanks at some point.
“Often it is the result of human factors at different levels of management. Here in Uppsala we experienced a freezer failure about ten years ago, where a whole cryogenic tank defrosted. There is a measure of bad luck in play”, she says.
”Here in Uppsala we experienced a freezer failure about ten years ago, where a whole cryogenic tank defrosted. There is a measure of bad luck in play.”
Anna Beskow
All six university hospitals say that they have experienced freezer failures before, but none report any significant loss of samples.
“I started working here in the mid 1980’s and have only seen three or four since then”, says Thomas Ludvigsson at University Hospital of Umeå.The incident at KI has been discussed att all six university hospitals, but none of them have changed their routines because of what happened.
