Cryoguard News

Posted by: Cryogal

Posted on: Jan. 31, 2012 

How Do You Use Cryoguard?

Find out how Seattle Cancer Care Alliance has been applying Cryoguard indicators

I spoke with Leslie Radtke, performance improvement lead at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance about how the Seattle, Washington, facility has been using Cryoguard indicators. Most recently, the SCCA has been using Cryoguard indicators as a back up to a new data logger, she said.

The SCCA has been applying Cryoguard indicators for years to monitor shipments of stem cells, Radtke said. Typically, the Cryoguard indicators monitor peripheral blood stem cell products, she said. Sometimes the facility also employs Cryoguard indicators to track shipments of cord blood and bone marrow products.

Seattle Cancer Care Alliance is a world-class cancer treatment center that unites doctors from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, UW Medicine and Seattle Children's, the company’s website says. Some treatments require the collection of stem cells from patients. Cryoguard indicators come into the picture when a patient has moved and needs those stem cell products shipped to the new location (for example, for a second transplant). In other cases, the SCCA freezes and stores stem cell products for smaller medical centers that don’t offer those services. “They’ll ship it to us for cryopreservation, we’ll freeze it and eventually ship it back to them when the patient is ready for transplant,” Radtke said.

Folks at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance ship the stem cell products in liquid nitrogen vapor shippers. Specifically, they use one of the MVE XC models from Chart Biomed with a data logger lid.

“They originally sold us just a vapor shipper with a normal lid,” Radtke said. “They now offer a lid with a data logger on top and a probe that comes down through the Styrofoam cap and hangs down into the cavity.”

The data logger lid is a good modification, Radtke said, because standards set forth by the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy require continuous temperature monitoring of stem cell products during shipment. If a temperature excursion occurs, the data logger provides information on when it happened and how long it was going on, Radtke said.

“Because the data logger lids are new to our process,” she said, “we chose to keep using the Cryoguards until the datalogger lids have passed performance qualification testing.”

Lab Staff at SCCA place the Cryoguard indicator in a 50 mL conical tube, which is what they use to contain any cryovials. The conical tube(s) goes on top of the product bags (within metal cassettes). Currently, the SCCA is using Cryoguard indicators in conjunction with the data logger.

Posted on: Jan. 17, 2012

Posted by: Cryogal

Cryoguard Joins LinkedIn

LinkedIn offers many different forums, including the Cell Therapy Industry Group

I’m excited to announce that Cryoguard Corporation joined LinkedIn.

Follow us! Click on the icon to see our profile:  

Having recently joined LinkedIn, I discovered the Cell Therapy Industry Group. If you work for/own a cell therapy company or conduct research in stem cells, you should take a look at this group.

Here’s a summary of what the Cell Therapy Industry Group is all about, courtesy of a phone interview with founder Lee Buckler.

What: Cell Therapy Industry Group.
Members: Nearly 2,400.
Who has joined: Folks involved with cell therapy companies and stem cell research.
When started: July 2008.
Founded by: Lee Buckler, founder and managing director of the Cell Therapy Group, a consulting firm focused on the cell therapy and regenerative medicine industry. The firm is based in the U.S. and Canada.
What it is: As described on LinkedIn: “The Cell Therapy Industry group was created to serve as a network of those in the regenerative medicine industry and cell therapy sector. The group is intended to act as a vehicle for referrals, networking, sharing info, and facilitating collaboration.”
Why founded: When LinkedIn started offering groups, Buckler thought a cellular therapy group had the potential to be an important forum for the exchange of information and ideas between people on the industry side of cell therapy. “So many of these professional organizations primarily serve academics and academic researchers,” he said. “At the time, and it’s still true to some extent, the companies in the cell therapy world were rather disconnected and disparate. Cell therapy is not one modality. I think we have felt the need to try and increase network points and intersections of information.”
Examples of hot topics discussed:

•  Removal of dimethyl sulfoxide, or DMSO (a frequently-used cryoprotectant), and other “post-thaw” issues related to cell products such as post-thaw washing.
• Ongoing discussions on how cell therapies are being regulated in different countries. “One of the hot button issues is the regulation of autologous cell therapies,” Buckler said.
• A wide range of commercially-oriented discussions related to financing, deals and partnerships.

How to join: Log into your LinkedIn account (or join LinkedIn, if you haven’t already at www.linkedin.com). Search “groups” for “Cell Therapy Industry Group.” Click on “Join Group,” and your request to join the group will be submitted for consideration.

Posted on: Jan. 6, 2012

Posted by: Cryogal

Avoiding Cross Contamination in the IVF Lab

What can embryologists learn from livestock studies? Get an inside look at Dr. Kimball Pomeroy’s upcoming discussion at the Southwest Embryology Summit.

In the mid-1990s, microbial cross contamination became a hot topic after a bone marrow bag apparently leaked inside a liquid nitrogen tank, contaminating the liquid nitrogen and other bone marrow samples stored inside. As a result, six transplant patients treated at a British hospital contracted Hepatitis B from the infected bone marrow. The incident, though isolated, sparked a larger conversation about the dangers of microbial cross contamination during the shipping and storage of cryopreserved materials.

On Monday, Dr. Kimball Pomeroy plans to explore how cross contamination relates to assisted reproduction during a talk titled “microbial cross contamination during storage in liquid nitrogen – what can livestock teach us?” His talk will be part of the brand new Southwest Embryology Summit in Las Vegas. It will be geared toward embryologists who work in fertility clinics across the southwestern U.S. I chatted with Pomeroy to get a preview of his presentation.

Cryogal: What is cross contamination as it relates to storage in liquid nitrogen?

Kimball Pomeroy: Cross contamination refers to a bacteria or virus on one reproductive sample escaping from its container, getting into a nearby container and infecting another tissue that was not previously contaminated with the virus or bacteria.

Cryogal: Why is microbial cross contamination in liquid nitrogen of interest to scientists at fertility clinics?

K.P.: Eggs, embryos and semen are stored in liquid nitrogen or nitrogen vapor during shipping and storage.

Cryogal: Why use animal studies as a reference?

K.P.: There’s so much more information. We’ve been working with eggs, embryos and semen with livestock for a much longer time than with humans . . . They have taken [cow] embryos and exposed them to bacteria and viruses and transferred them into other cows and checked to see if the cows became infected and the offspring became infected. There are experiments you just can’t do on humans to test these theories out.

Cryogal: What can livestock teach us about cross contamination of reproductive specimen in liquid nitrogen?

K.P.: When we look through all the records of animal species, for example cattle species where there have been millions of vials of semen frozen, there is no history of cross contamination using the containers or tissues we use. There is a particular virus, Bovine Viral Diarrhea Virus or BVDV [a virus that suppresses the cow’s immune system.] The virus is found quite often all through the cattle industry, and it can have a big impact on the health of your herd. Yet there is not one instance we know of where there has been cross contamination when they have used semen stored in tanks where it could have been exposed to BVDV.

Cryogal: What does the (human) IVF industry do to prevent cross contamination?

K.P.: I think the biggest thing done is screening of patients. We screen our patients for sexually-transmitted diseases. A lot of the time cross contamination is not an issue mainly because the tissue we recover has almost no blood whatsoever. We also dilute out these tissues many times as we’re using different drops.

Cryogal: What else do you expect your audience to discuss?

K.P.: I’m sure a large part of the discussion is going to be on open and closed containers for storing tissue. With open containers, tissue is exposed to liquid nitrogen, and that increases the risk of cross contamination but it’s never been shown to happen . . . The alternative is a closed system, where there is, unfortunately, an insulated area of air around that piece of tissue that slows down the cooling and warming rates, but it protects it [the tissue] from being contaminated by liquid nitrogen. Liquid nitrogen is not purified. Whatever is in liquid nitrogen theoretically could contaminate the tissue.

Cryogal: Is storage in liquid nitrogen vapor preferable when it comes to reducing the risk of cross contamination?

K.P.: One of the big movements for a while was: People were looking at vapor storage tanks for storing large amounts of tissue. There are a lot of people that question whether those methods are going to be suitable, especially for vitrified specimen. They may be fine for slow-cooled specimen. Will they be able to keep vitrified specimens at the proper temperature? Do they actually remove the risk of cross contamination? I don’t think either of those has been adequately shown.

=====
Details…
What: Discussion on microbial cross contamination
Presenter: Kimball Pomeroy, laboratory director and co-owner of Arizona Reproductive Medicine Specialists in Phoenix, Arizona. Read his bio here.
When: 2-3 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, Monday, Jan. 9, 2012
Where: Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada
Open to: Registered Southwest Embryology Summit attendees (registration is full)
More info: www.southwestembryologysummit.com
=====

 

Posted by: Cryogal

Posted on: 1/3/2012

New Event Offers Networking Opportunity for Embryologists

Southwest Embryology Summit is Jan. 8-9 in Las Vegas

Have you heard about this cool new event? The Southwest Embryology Summit kicks off Jan. 8-9, 2012, at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Registration is full (it had been capped at 50 people) but this won’t be your last chance to attend; organizers hope to make the summit an annual happening!

The ‘Next Generation’ of Embryologists

Marlane Angle, laboratory director for Laurel Fertility Care in San Francisco, California, is among a group of IVF professionals in the southwestern U.S. who organized the summit *. She said the event has two purposes: networking and education. Lab directors are responsible for making sure the embryologists under their supervision obtain continuing education credits and move up within the field, Angle said. This is particularly pressing as several laboratory directors in the southwestern U.S. near retirement.

“It’s about this point we all start thinking about: who’s going to be the next generation?” Angle said. “I think a lot of this industry is connections, who you know. The meetings we’ve all traditionally gone to are getting bigger and bigger . . . Most of them are run and directed by physicians. You tend to go for political reasons. It’s really hard to develop contacts with your peers. All of us are seeing junior people coming up. We want to make sure they have forums for education and forums for networking.”

The Southwest Embryology Summit will be just such a forum. In the interest of keeping the summit as affordable as possible, organizers set registration fees at $50, planned the event in Las Vegas during the offseason, obtained special room rates and recruited industry sponsors. About 10 vendors will promote their products at tables inside the meeting room. There is no registration deadline for becoming a sponsor. 

Because the attendance was capped at 50 people, event-goers should get plenty of face-to-face contact. Several exciting discussions on the schedule promise to spark lively debate. Each presentation will last about 15 minutes. A half hour of discussion will follow.

Presentations include:

* Keynote Speaker: Jonathan Van Blerkom, Ph.D.

Topic: "Molecular remodeling of the plasma membrane during mouse and human oocyte maturation and early embryogenesis"

* Speaker: Michael Reed, Ph.D., HCLD

Topic: "Practical, technical approaches to human embryo culture: room for improvement"

* Speaker: Levent Keskintepe, Ph.D., HCLD

Topic: “Oocyte vitrification: Ups and downs"

* Speaker: Kimball Pomeroy, Ph.D., HCLD

Topic: “Microbial cross-contamination during storage in liquid nitrogen - What can livestock teach us?"

* Speaker: Marlane Angle, Ph.D., HCLD

Topic: "The medium’s the message: Quality control in the IVF lab"

A full schedule can be found here: http://www.southwestembryologysummit.com/

The Great pH Debate

During her talk on quality control, Angle plans to cover pH levels as they relate to the culturing of embryos. pH is important because it can affect embryo development and pregnancy rates. “If you look historically, we all started culturing our embryos at a pH of 7.4, because that’s blood pH,” Angle said.

However, there has been some research, particularly from Jay Baltz at the Ottowa Hospital Research Institute, that suggests the intracellular pH of embryos is lower than the pH of blood; for example, research showed the intracellular pH of a mouse embryo is more like 7.12, Angle said.

“Our embryology techniques derive from cell culture techniques, so when you try to measure the intracellular pH of most cells held in culture, it mimics blood cultures, which is 7.4, so the assumption was that human embryos and the blastomeres of embryos were going to do the same thing.”

What scientists have found is that even though other cell types might have intracellular pHs of 7.4, embryos don’t, Angle said. And that’s why the industry has moved to a pH of 7.25 for culturing embryos.

“The point I’m trying to make is: Just because we’ve always done things a particular way doesn’t mean we always should do things that way. One of the things we need to start rethinking is how we culture our embryos. I think there is a movement out there to lower the pH of our culture environment.”

If you are interested in learning more about the Southwest Embryology Summit, visit www.southwestembryologysummit.com or email Marlane Angle at drangle@laurelfertility.com.

* Other founders of the Southwest Embryology Summit include: Levent Keskintepe, executive laboratory director at the Sher Institute for Reproductive Medicine in Las Vegas; Kimball Pomeroy, laboratory director and co-owner of Arizona Reproductive Medicine Specialists in Phoenix, Arizona; and Michael Reed, laboratory director for the Center for Reproductive Medicine of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Heading to the Southwest Embryology Summit?

I checked in with Jeremy Handel, senior manager of public affairs with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors' Authority, to find out what Vegas is like this time of year. As you can see from the photo below, Mandalay Bay is right on the southern tip of the strip.

Cryogal: What is the weather usually like in early January in Las Vegas?

Jeremy Handel: While Las Vegas enjoys and annual average temperature in 70s, early January can be cooler with highs in low 60s and overnight lows in the 40s.

 

Cryogal: Anything special you would recommend packing for a trip to Vegas in January?

J.H.: Two things I would always recommend for that time of year is a jacket or coat and comfortable shoes to experience the destination on foot.