Forgotten Biological Samples Threaten Research Integrity
Learn why biological sample storage must evolve to prevent costly research losses.
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Millions of biological samples face irreversible degradation due to outdated storage practices or simply being forgotten, warns leading scientist.
Dr. Jennifer Man, director of Science at UK Biocentre, has issued a warning about the global scientific community’s reliance on antiquated approaches to sample management, citing recent high-profile incidents that have destroyed decades of research.
A cryogenic storage expert, Dr. Man emphasizes the urgent need for organizations to review and update their cold storage strategy to safeguard their biological samples amid tightening regulations and climate-driven energy challenges.
“Accurate storage temperatures and its control is imperative for sample integrity, but how many researchers can vouch that the viability of their data has not been impacted by sample storage conditions? What is the disaster recovery plan should your storage fail? Furthermore, how these samples are managed is integral to scientific integrity – sample identification and its importance to ensure traceability cannot be overstated,” said Dr. Man. “Many of us have left samples in storage, labeled in a way that only few can interpret without thinking of the consequences for future use.”
Dr. Man’s comments follow numerous catastrophic freezer failures worldwide that have set back research for decades.
In 2023, a 2023 liquid nitrogen malfunction destroyed irreplaceable leukaemia samples dating back 30 years at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute Biomedical Research Centre., A cleaner’s error in at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York erased 20 years of research into photosynthesis in 2023, and in 2012, a freezer malfunction at a Harvard-affiliated hospital caused 150 frozen brains to thaw, with impacts on research into autism.
Manual -80 °C freezers remain a widespread vulnerability in laboratories, with studies showing 16% of all freezers fail annually, regardless of age or model. These failures, often caused by human error or mechanical issues, risk catastrophic sample loss.
The UK’s Human Tissue Authority’s 2024–2027 strategy now mandates real-time temperature logging and chain-of-custody documentation to ensure compliance – standards that manual systems struggle to meet.
Decades-old samples often remain forgotten in freezers long after projects conclude, creating ethical and logistical challenges. Clinical research sites report spending hours combing through freezers to locate misplaced samples, with some discovered months after being declared ”lost”.
Dr. Man, an advocate for genetic counseling, explains: “Researchers fear discarding materials but lack resources to maintain them. This creates ethical quagmires. Who owns abandoned samples? Are original consents still valid?”
The Human Tissue Authority’s updated guidelines stress the need for transparent governance of stored tissues, particularly for samples tied to expired studies or unclear consent. UK Biocentre’s automated systems, currently used for high-throughput sample processing and storage projects like Our Future Health, ensure traceability is maintained through barcoded tracking and centralised databases.
However, for some academic, research and biomedical companies, the arrangements for onward storage when a research project comes to a close or if the research moves on are often unclear. While their initial use has concluded, there may remain a need for the sample to remain in safe storage. To prevent legacy samples from building up in lab freezers, researchers would do well to build legacy storage costs into their projects and grant proposals.
UK Biocentre’s Milton Keynes facility houses 35 million biological samples for projects like the UK Government’s Our Future Health and has pioneered large-scale adoption of Azenta’s robotic -80 °C storage systems to ensure storage temperatures are maintained and samples remain discoverable and viable for decades.
“When you’re storing 100,000 samples, manual systems become a liability,” said Dr. Man. “Our automated infrastructure prevents the ‘forgotten box’ scenario while cutting energy costs by 75% compared to legacy models.”
The technology’s climate benefits are compelling: natural air cooling replaces synthetic refrigerants, aligning with net-zero commitments for biological specimen storage across academia and pharma.
The Human Tissue Authority’s updated strategy prioritises public trust through rigorous sample governance, a standard increasingly difficult for organisations using manual systems.
Within the problem lies the solution – handling fluctuations in temperature, capacity and longevity, mislabeling and human error, while also maintaining ethical accountability by safeguarding samples in facilities that invest in the latest automated storage, such as at UK Biocentre, is the way to safeguard them for current and future health and biosecurity research.
