My university's -80 freezer just broke down and the repair will take 4 months according to the vendor. Is there any other way to preserve cells? Maintaining lot of flasks until the freezer is repaired is not viable option. Another option is to rent -80 from other university.
Have you got a liquid nitrogen storage facility in the University/Department?
It may be easier and also less cumbersome than renting a new -80
you can try to transfer freezing container with vials to −20°C freezer and leave them overnight. Then place vials to liquid nitrogen tank. But the viability of cells probably will be lower than if you use -80°C freezer as an intermediate step.
If you are simply looking for a method to slowly freeze cells before adding them to liquid nitrogen during a cryopreservation protocol, you could try an acetone-dry ice cooling bath. This maintains a temperature of ~ -78°C. If your vials are in a "Mr frosty", "Cool Cell" or equivalent, their temperature reduces at ~1°C/min and so you would only need to incubate them for around 120 minutes before transferring to liquid nitrogen storage.
I haven't done this myself unfortunately so I do not have an in depth protocol to send you but here is a brief youtube video, you will be able to find more with a thorough internet search. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9v1K5jF_C0
I hope this helps,
Sam
Thanks everyone for the answer. We have liquid nitrogen and -20 freezer. I am using cool cell. Perhaps I could try to freeze one or two vials and test the methods mentioned. I have also a link on using dry ice which is -78 as alternative to -80 freezer.
Hi Reagan, we have GRANT Controlled Rate Freezer, so after the automated freezing is completed, we transfer the vials to liq. N2.
Once, out of desperation, a colleague of mine revived cells directly from -20 (without going thru liq. N2). But the vials had only been in -20 for a few days; never months.
I'm coming soon. See you.
Thanks Maelinda. For now, we are still figuring out what is the best way to store some cell lines without -80 freezer. We do have collaboration with Malaysian Pepper Board and they told that we could use their -80 freezer for the time being. I guess that is the only option because using dry ice is quite expensive as the vendor sell it at minimum of 20kg/order.
As many others suggested already, freeze cells if they are mammalian origin in -20C before moving into liquid nitrogen. If the cells are bacteria or yeast, snap freeze them in liquid nitrogen or simply maintain them on agar plates until your -80C freezer is ready to be used.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Biological Science
- Molecular Cell Biology
- Culture Cells
- Cell Line