Maxell Corp. has teamed up with ABgene, a supplier of plastic consumables and instruments, and Micronic, which develops sample storage technologies, to demonstrate how radio frequency identification (RFID) could be used to track samples in a laboratory environment. The three companies are demonstrating the technology at the Lab Automation conference in San Jose this week. Kobe Bio Robotix and Tsubakimoto Chain in Japan helped developed the demo.
"We have seen the advent of 2D [bar] coding supersede linear bar codes for identification purposes. We now view RFID as a next-generation technology that similarly could transform how we track and trace specimens in the laboratory," said Simon May, business development manager at ABgene. "RFID allows wireless transfer of information from a RFID tag to a RFID reader. With no line-of-sight restrictions and the ability to store information at an order of magnitude higher, RFID potentially could accelerate and improve the quality of laboratory results and reduce operational costs. Through our partnership with Maxell, we can expose researchers and lab professionals to the functional capabilities and economic benefits of the technology."
Maxell's sample tubes include either a removable bottom component that encapsulates a rewritable RFID chip, or a permanently attached encapsulated RFID chip. Maxell is demonstrating its 96-rack tray system, which holds 96 individual sample tubes, in the ABgene and Micronic booths at the Lab Automation conference.
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