First arktic Biospecimen Storage System in the Southern Hemisphere Installed at Griffith University

WARRIEWOOD, Australia - Nov. 26, 2017 - PRLog -- AXT and Griffith University are proud to announce that the first TTP Labtech arktic has recently been installed at the Menzies Health Institute Queensland (MenziesHIQ). This is the first of these systems to be installed in the southern hemisphere and will store their extensive collection of biospecimens used for clinical research.
The arktic is a purpose designed biostorage facility capable of catering for a library of up to 140,000 specimens in a compact package. The modular design allows you to expand your storage capacity growing with your needs.

To ensure their biological integrity is maintained, they are stored at a constant -80°C, and only those specimens specifically requested are ever taken out of the atmospherically controlled environment. The system also provides high-speed automated specimen retrieval, able to deliver a pre-sorted rack of 96 specimens in under 3 minutes.

Menzies Heath Institute Queensland is committed to translating innovative health research into better health outcomes. The arktic has allowed them to consolidate several biospecimen collections and centralise them into the biobank facility of the institute. Currently, they have in excess of 12,000 biospecimens including breast cancer and placental cord samples.

Following the successful centralisation of their various collections, MenziesHIQ are looking to become the central repository in the region. As such the state-of-the-art arktic storage facility will be made available to clinicians and researchers who can store, manage and retrieve tissue samples and data, which can then be retrieved by researchers in the future. Furthermore, they will look to facilitate collaborative research with a view to accelerating clinical solutions.

"Researchers who may not have very large budgets will be afforded the chance of a cost effective research solution, accessing the samples that they want without having to go through onerous procedures," says Professor Nigel McMillan, Director of the Understanding Chronic Conditions program at MenziesHIQ.

Richard Trett, Managing Director at AXT commented, "this is another landmark installation for AXT and TTP Labtech. We are proud of the fact that we can assist Australian researchers by bringing them cutting-edge solutions like the arktic. We look forward to working with them to promote medical research into the future."

AXT is a distributor of high-end scientific equipment serving the academic and industrial markets. The TTP product range forms part of AXT's life science product portfolio. For more information, please visit http://www.axt.com.au.