Halloween has passed and aside from pumpkins and scary costumes, dry ice is quite common party staple. Besides being a magical element for parties, it's used as a cooling agent for various things. For example: to preserve food, to do the blast cleaning, to make dry ice bombs and to package items that must remain cold or frozen, such as ice cream or biological samples (when mechanical cooling is not an option).
In biotech you can see that dry ice is an everyday thing. Besides the environmental impact, it has quite an impact on finances as well. Here is a simple comparison of two options:
1. Dry-ice shipment
European company, who manufactures COVID-19 CE-IVD labelled diagnostic kits and sells them in domestic market but also ships to US and Mexico.
They planned on sending first a small amount to US – with huge box of dry ice shipped by the world´s leading logistics company. The quotation for shipping 4 kits with dry ice sufficient for 4 days delivery costs 300 EUR.
Then there are temperature-controlled shipments. That European kit-maker got a quotation from a special logistics company who offers full service (dry ice refill with temperature control) transport to the customer. Temperature-controlled shipment of 200 kits – 2800 EUR; similar quotation for a 1 kit - 2100 EUR.
For this customer, the problem is shipping small amounts to their customers. If they ship 50+ kits, then it makes sense to use temperature-controlled service, otherwise it is too expensive for their customer.
2. Ambient temperature shipment
Second example comes from us. Our entire product range is stable at room temperature for a month. That magic component there is genetic modification in our enzymes, called Stability TAG. We are using DHL Express Delivery service and shipping at ambient temperature (costs around 35-50 EUR globally) that is roughly:
There are many more aspects to consider regarding dry ice shipments. It is classified as a “miscellaneous” hazard for several reasons and not all logistics companies have the permission to ship dry ice.
So, is dry ice trick or treat? It´s tricky product with its side effects but also a treat, as it helps to preserve and transport various items without need for mechanical cooling.
We are proud that we don´t need to calculate pros and cons of dry ice, as we chose the more sustainable path! If you want to know more about our Stability TAG technology, that enables us to use room-temperature shipping and storing, look here.
This summer we got to collaborate with a fun project organized by the MINT Campus in Germany. Not only does MINT campus inspire children and young people about these topics but it also introduces young people to sustainable, innovative developments in current research and technology.
Whether you are studying the genetic material of plants, brains or viruses, the experiment usually starts with extracting RNA from the sample material. It would be incredibly useful to get all the RNA extracted instead of it getting destroyed by the RNases before even starting the cDNA synthesis step. But how can we protect the RNA when RNases are all around us? Let’s find out!
There aren’t many people who can lead teams as well as our Head of Quality and Product Management Eva-Maria does. She is like that red string on a mystery board connecting all the departments. If you would like to get a little closer to solving the great leadership puzzle that Eva-Maria has mastered, have a look at the following story.
On the 4th and 5th of June representatives from South Korea visited Tartu. Their primary focus was on exploring opportunities in the fields of biotechnology and medicine, seeking potential collaborators in Estonia. We had the great pleasure of meeting the delegation and sharing our knowledge on both days of the visit.
