Before you ship

Sample shipping and packaging

How to package, label and send your samples so they arrive in the condition they left in: dry ice and ambient shipments, tube and plate formats, paperwork, and the submission form that travels with them.

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← All sample submission guidelines

Before you ship

The Sample Submission Form

What we need with a shipment depends on how the work was ordered.

Project on quote. Send a completed Sample Submission Form by e-mail before you ship, with the carrier tracking number, and include a copy in the package. Sample names on the form must match the tube labels exactly, in name and in quantity. Add any QC data you already have: concentration, OD ratios, RIN.
Shop reorder. Your order already carries the service, the validated setup and your reference, so there is nothing to describe again. Reply to your order confirmation with the list of tubes and the tracking number. The form is still the simplest way to produce that list: fill in the sample table, export it, or save the page as a PDF and attach it.

Sending raw material rather than extracted nucleic acids? Our Extraction & QC platform handles extraction and quality control for you. The protocols in the step-by-step section below cover the most common raw sample types.

Packaging & shipping

Shipping guidelines

A shipping address, tracking checklist and courier account details are provided once your booking is confirmed, since requirements vary by service. The rules below apply to every shipment.

Weekday delivery only. Time your shipment to arrive on a weekday. We cannot take delivery at weekends.
  1. Use 1.5 mL centrifuge tubes where possible, sealed with parafilm. Insert them into 50 mL centrifuge tubes (or another rigid support) padded with cotton or foam, so they can't be crushed in transit.
  2. For large-scale projects, use well-sealed 96-well semi- or fully-skirted PCR plates, or strip-tubes with individually attached caps. Seal every well with an adhesive sheet/foil and cushion the plate or strip tubes in a sturdy box. Ship plates on frozen blue ice or dry ice so samples stay frozen throughout.
  3. Label the top of each tube lid with a maximum of four alphanumeric characters (e.g. 4B01), and write the full sample name at the top and on the side of the tube. Use a black permanent marker, never an oil pen directly on the tube wall.
  4. DNA precipitated in 70% ethanol can travel at ambient temperature. DNA in water or TE buffer needs ice packs.
  5. RNA and frozen tissue should be snap-frozen in liquid nitrogen and shipped on dry ice. Ice packs are not sufficient for RNA, dry ice only. The amount of dry ice needed depends on season, transit time and foam box thickness.
  6. Cells and bacterial cultures: contact us before freezing. The protocol depends on whether the material needs to remain viable on arrival.
  7. Blood samples travel best in 5 to 10 mL plastic anticoagulant collection vessels, each wrapped in bubble wrap and packed in a rigid box to prevent crushing.
  8. Plasma and serum: ship frozen on dry ice, in aliquots rather than a single tube, so that no aliquot is thawed more than once. Tell us the time between collection and centrifugation, and the number of freeze-thaw cycles the material has already been through.
  9. Notify us before shipping: send the Sample Submission Form and tracking number by email so we can register and process your samples on arrival.
  10. We recommend FedEx, DHL or UPS for all shipments.

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