X-Message-Number: 26518
From: "Mark Plus" <>
Subject: Labs Use Tags for Cold Storage
Date: Mon, 04 Jul 2005 19:06:52 -0700

Of possible relevance to cryonics:

http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/1701/1/1/

Labs Use Tags for Cold Storage
Four French hospital research laboratories are using RFID to identify 
biological specimens stored in liquid nitrogen.

By Jonathan Collins

July 4, 2005 RFID systems provider Tagsys says it plans to market a radio 
frequency identification system to monitor test tubes exposed to extreme 
cold and temperature changes.

"This is a proven, robust, reliable and secure system," says Elie Simon, CEO 
of Tagsys, which is based in La Penne sur Huveaune, France. The company says 
four hospital research laboratories near its headquarters have begun 
deploying the system to identify individual test tubes containing biological 
samples for cancer and stem cell research.

Tagsys claims field tests have proven its Ario SDM (Small Disc Module) tags 
can operate in the extreme environments found at the labs. The tags have to 
be able to withstand temperatures as low as -320 F (-196 C) when stored in 
liquid nitrogen, as well as a rapid temperature rise by as much as 257 F 
(125 C), when they are removed from storage and exposed to room temperature.

The Paoli Calmettes Institute in Marseille began field tests of the 13.56 
MHz RFID tags two years ago. For the first trial, 100 tubes, each embedded 
with an Ario SDM tag in its cap, were stored in liquid nitrogen for six 
months to see if the tags could withstand the extreme temperature for such a 
prolonged period. The second round of testing, which also lasted six months, 
followed with 1,000 tagged tubes placed in liquid nitrogen storage but 
removed at regular intervals to determine if the tags could withstand vast 
temperature swings.

After the tags passed both trials, the Paoli Calmettes Institute deployed 
the Tagsys Ario SDM system. Within the past few months, research 
laboratories at three other Marseille hospitals Hospital of La Timone, 
Hospital of La Conception and North University Hospital began using the 
technology with their own research samples.

According to Tagsys, the four labs are using more than 200,000 test tubes 
equipped with its Ario SDM tags. Two RFID readers (interrogators) are 
deployed at each facility. An Ario SDM read-write tag carries 2 kilobytes of 
memory, used to store a unique serial number, as well as a security key. The 
serial number of each test tube's tag is linked to a database housing 
critical information on that tube's tissue samples, including patient data, 
tissue treatments and other variables. The system uses software, developed 
by robotics and automation specialist Cybern tix, to manage the readers and 
the database, as well as to provide an application to pinpoint where a 
specific test tube is on the tray being read.

The labs are using Tagsys fixed desktop and lightweight RFID handheld 
readers, which can interrogate 100 tags in less than three seconds. Trays at 
the labs can hold up to 100 test tubes, and the system can quickly locate 
specific samples in a tray, according to Tagsys.

The RFID system replaces a bar code labeling system that could be unreliable 
because the labels can peel away from the specimen tubes. In addition, RFID 
has the additional benefit of allowing the tubes to be identified more 
easily and quickly, enabling more frequent and regular monitoring of 
pathology samples.

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