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That is true! Samples are usually good forever in the freezer. Do they keep all samples? Running -80C freezers is not cheap! I have 3 -80C freezers in my lab,
by a_bonobo 3y ago
That is true! Samples are usually good forever in the freezer. Do they keep all samples?
Running -80C freezers is not cheap! I have 3 -80C freezers in my lab, those large chest-freezers, and each uses 22 kWh per day for a total of 66 kWh per day. Apparently the average US household consumes 29 kWh per day, so we use up 2 houses per day.
Our freezers certainly don't hold the 14 million samples 23andMe supposedly has, more like in the low thousands. They'd need the power-usage of a city to keep all those samples OK!
- aden1ne 3y agoYou can extract the DNA and store that instead - and they already had to that to their analysis in the first place. Far smaller volume than the raw sample. Storing this for an effectively indefinite amount is not uncommon. I used to work at a clinical genetics lab, and some material had to be stored (by law!) for a whopping 120 years.