Labels Board the Frozen Ark

Skin cells from endangered animals are grown in tissue culture at London’s Institute of Zoology, labelled using Brady’s BBP™11 printer and stored in liquid nitrogen as part of the global Frozen Ark Project.

The mission of the Frozen Ark is to save the DNA and viable cells from many thousands of rare and endangered mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and invertebrates. The current worldwide loss of species is largely due to human population increase and consequent effects such as global warming. By preserving cell samples taken from animals in captive breeding programmes, zoos and wild populations, precious information about a species can be saved for future research.

Daphne Green, Senior Technician at the Institute of Zoology (IoZ) in London, is involved in growing cells from animal skin samples in tissue culture as part of the Frozen Ark Project. She explained: “By culturing skin cells we can greatly increase the number of cells available and then divide them into sub-samples ready for freezing in liquid nitrogen. Each tube needs to be labelled with detailed information about the sample and we use a Brady system to be sure that our labels remain legible and do not become detached during storage.”

The versatile BBP11 thermal transfer printer from Brady, the world leader in Identification Solutions, provides fast, economical 300 dpi printing on a wide range of high performance label materials. A spacesaving
small footprint and easy loading make the printer convenient to use, while Brady labelling software supports database import and 2D or linear barcoding.

Daphne Green was impressed by the IoZ’s Brady printer: “The BBP11 prints very quickly, providing a highly efficient way of producing labels for all the multiple tubes we need to freeze for each animal sample. The print quality looks very clear and neat, and we can get more information on our labels than before. Brady’s FreezerBondz™ labels not only withstand the long-term storage in liquid nitrogen required for samples going into the Frozen Ark, but they can be applied to frozen surfaces. This very useful property has enabled us to add labels to some tubes which had been stored with inadequate identification.’