How Testo supports UTS's critical facilities

Storing pharmaceutical and biological materials isn’t as simple as putting them in a facility closet with little-to-no air control functions.

According to the WHO, there are a number of facility climate requirements companies need to abide by. These standards define what sort of temperature loggers organisations should use. The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) is one institution that must pay attention to climate control guidelines.

The university’s role in pharmaceutical, biotechnological and scientific assessments has made indoor climate administration a key priority. University Technical Service Support Manager Philip Lawrence detailed how the Testo Saveris data logger assists him in maintaining optimal storage environments.

What’s your role at the university?

As Technical Support Manager in the Faculty of Science, I am responsible for cross-facility operations and projects such as the alarm systems, our field vehicle fleet, centralised glasswash, the cryostorage facility and I also manage our superlab teaching facility. Planning and implementing new systems and facilities, as well as reviewing, recommending and applying improvements to existing systems, is routine.

Why does UTS need a temperature monitoring system?

One of the conditions on our insurance for perishable goods is that it is only covered if we have alarms set for our temperature monitoring system. Moreover, the insurance excess often prohibits any reasonable recovery of losses and is often too little too late when years of work have been lost. We therefore rely on early detection of critical storage problems that allow us to respond to and correct equipment failures and save our precious samples.

Why does the school have multiple temperature parameters for its samples?

Medium-term storage of live cells requires that they are stored below -50°C to prevent the cells from deteriorating. For this we use a -80°C freezer so there is room for temperature drift without losing cells. For very long-term storage of biological samples, we put cells and nucleic acid samples in liquid or vapour phase nitrogen as they need to be kept below the glass transition temperature of water (below -135°C).

We also have incubators running different temperature set points, as our research is diverse — covering biomedical cell culture and cryostorage, aquatic algae and corals. We store numerous other biological samples at -200, -80, -20 and 4°C.

What is it about the Saveris temperature logger that makes it so helpful?

The Testo wireless system allows us to set up new equipment on an alarm in a matter of minutes and gives us direct control of the alarm set points, who receives notifications and in what order. It also gives us instant feedback of all aspects of the system and this allows us to quickly test, troubleshoot and correct problems without depending on other departments in the university. By contrast, wired systems take a long time to install in new locations, are expensive and usually involve several different divisions of the university.

For highly critical temperature storage, the Saveris provides rapid alarms and also allows us to review temperature history for each incubator. For some less-critical systems, we use the device to monitor refrigerator power supplies.

I like the Testo system because it has made the monitoring and troubleshooting of our critical storage practical and easy even across multiple facilities that require different types of monitoring.

For more information, visit www.testoaus.com.au or call 1800 659 223.