A biobank LIMS keeps the vial as the unit: biobanking LIMS and biobank software track every aliquot's position in a freezer, rack and box, its parent sample, its consent, its freeze-thaw count and who took it out. Biorepository software is the same record for a repository that serves other labs; biological sample management and clinical sample management are the same record for a lab that keeps its own; an NGS LIMS adds the library prep and the sequencing run above the vial. For a small repository the question that arrives first is storage: how full the freezers are and when they will be. The free sample storage sheet on this site works that from the repository's own numbers with no account.
The biobanking LIMS record: the vial, its parent and its consent
Every vial descends from a sample that descends from a donor whose consent has a scope and a date; a request for vials for a study is answered by consent first and position second. Biobank software that keeps the consent as a scanned form has kept the consent; a biobank LIMS that keeps it as fields against every descendant vial can answer the request.
Storage, worked
Freezers times racks times boxes times vials is the capacity; the vials stored over it is the occupancy; the monthly additions into the free positions is the months to full. The sample storage sheet on this site works it: three freezers of eight racks of twelve boxes of 81 vials hold 23,328, and 15,000 stored with 900 added a month is 64% occupancy and nine months to full on the worked example.
An NGS LIMS above the vial
An NGS LIMS keeps the extraction, the library, the pool and the run against the vials that went into them, so a run's samples and a sample's runs are both lookups. Limslane Pro keeps the vial record with its parents, positions and consent at one flat price; the sequencing queue is the same record one level up.
Questions people ask about biobank lims
What is a biobank LIMS?
The record of every vial with its parent sample, donor consent, freezer position, freeze-thaw count and custody, and the storage arithmetic worked from it.
Is biorepository software different from biobank software?
Same record; a biorepository serves other labs and adds the request and the shipment to it.
When will the freezers be full?
Free positions over the monthly additions: nine months on the worked example, from six figures on the free sample storage sheet.
Are biological sample management and clinical sample management the same record?
Yes, for a lab that keeps its own samples: the same vial record, with position, parent, consent and custody. Biorepository software is that record for a repository that serves other labs.