The medical staff demonstrates the operation process of sample collection and sorting out of the box and picking and sorting.
The automated sample library pick-up process is visible from the screen.
At present, the sample of the automated database for transfer and new storage has exceeded 1.2 million copies.
Recently, the National Children's Regional Medical Center (Zhongnan) and Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center held the unveiling ceremony of the fully automated sample bank of clinical biological resources, and the ultra-low temperature automatic storage system of the sample bank was officially put into use, which is the first set of automation library in the country to use special motors to achieve -80 °C storage, pick pipe and temporary storage in the whole region, and it is also the first set of automated libraries in the country to achieve more than one million samples that have been running in the library, which is of great significance to medical health research and exploration.
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Fully automated library of millions of biological samples: Automated library tubes are more than ten times higher than traditional manual management
The fully automated library of biological samples is located on the first floor of the basement in the northwest corner of the hospital, with a total area of about 120 square meters and a storage density of about 140,000 copies/square meter, which is the highest storage density in the sample bank that has been built in China.
At the ceremony site, the medical staff demonstrated the main functional characteristics and operation modes of the ultra-low temperature automatic storage system, and demonstrated the operation process of sample collection box out of the warehouse and picking and sorting.
The clinical biological resources sample bank automated storage center is composed of an ultra-low temperature automated storage system of minus 80 degrees Celsius and a deep and low temperature automatic storage system of minus 196 degrees Celsius with a comprehensive stock of 100,000 copies.
The automated ultra-low temperature storage system consists of 3 completely independent modules, each of which can store different types of consumables according to the plan, and can support different tasks at the same time. The cryogenic storage system consists of an automated storage and operation module and a flexible robot. The flexible robot can complete the transfer of samples according to the scheduling task, complete the linkage task between multiple devices, and mainly save tissue samples and precious replica samples that need to be stored for a long time.
At the same time, each specimen has established a special queue number, which helps interdisciplinary and cross-ward outpatient clinics to work closely together, share resources, and can accurately manage the specimen through "universal number", "special number", "special number + personalized time point number". The ultra-low temperature automatic storage system is fully connected with the sample information system, and the access tasks can be sent remotely and performed locally.
"For example, we found some phenomena in the specimens, there are many clinical doubts, these samples are needed to do basic research, and the specimens can help in the entire research process before, during and after," said Gu Xiaoqiong, director of the clinical biological resource bank. First of all, the traditional mode mainly relies on manual operation in sample storage management, while the fully automated sample library can realize the automatic storage and automatic removal of equipment, reduce the probability of human operation errors and cross-contamination, avoid the risk of sample heating exposure, personnel frostbite, etc., ensure the quality of samples in the whole cycle of the library, and ensure the safety of sample storage and the accuracy of use to the greatest extent. Secondly, the storage capacity and operational efficiency are also significantly improved, using high-density storage boxes, the same area is more than 40% more than the storage capacity of the general automated storage system; the traditional mode takes 5 minutes to complete a sample cycle, take 1000 to 5000 samples, it is expected to take 80 to 800 man-hours, and the automated library can achieve 24-hour continuous operation, improve the efficiency of more than ten times the pipe collection, and greatly reduce the repetitive work of laboratory manpower. Undoubtedly, it will help to save and optimize the space resources and human resources of the hospital.
The fully automated library of biological samples built this time adopts strict quality control measures to realize the temperature control record and sample information verification record of the whole process of specimen storage. Traceability of full storage process information: electronic management system, comprehensive management, control, and recording of sample in and out of the warehouse information, to achieve information management closed-loop.
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Clinical sample collection: containing 29 major diseases and 32 common disease cohorts
As the largest women's and children's specialized hospital in central and southern China, Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center has a complete set of specialties, with about 3.53 million outpatient emergency visits and nearly 119,400 discharged patients in 2020, with rich clinical resources. In 2015, the Clinical Biological Resource Library was established, and so far the clinical sample collection department covers all specialties in five campuses, including 29 major disease cohorts and 32 common disease cohorts. Specimen types include peripheral blood, stool, other body fluids, throat swabs, fresh tissue, and tissue wax patches. The total number of incoming samples is 2.2 million, and the outbound samples are 70,000.
From the beginning of 2019, the fully automated sample library has completed all installation, commissioning and project acceptance by December 2021, and the current transfer and addition of automated database samples has exceeded 1.2 million.
As the first sample storage system developed by independent innovation in China and the application of aerospace-grade automation, the fully automated sample bank of clinical biological resources for women and children is based on the information foundation and the bottom two-dimensional code storage tube of the high starting point of the construction of the sample bank phase I, and the precious samples accumulated by the center for many years are smoothly transferred from the traditional refrigerator to the automated storage system, becoming the first automated system in China to run more than one million copies in the library, providing a more efficient and higher quality biological sample foundation for the central medical research work.
Gong Sitang, deputy secretary of the Party Committee of Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center, likened the fully automated sample bank of clinical biological resources to a "bank of life". He said that the biggest significance of the sample bank is to explore the cause of the disease, can be more accurate treatment of each disease, "in 2019 and 2020, our research on the basis of chronic colitis and biliary atresia, published in Cell ("Cell" journal, the top international scientific journal), with specimens to explore the mechanism, the diagnosis, treatment and judgment of the two diseases will be of great help"; Secondly, with the specimen bank, the treatment of future diseases is more accurate; before this, Many patient specimens are discarded as waste, with a herbarium, these can be preserved, turn waste into treasure, perhaps in five years, ten years or even fifty years will become a gold mine, for the future people to trace the disease, the root cause of the discussion formed a good resource library. "So, we're doing gold mining right now," he said.
Writing, photography: Nandu reporter Li Chunhua correspondent Zhou Mi Li Wen