All Members Community

Hi Everyone,

I would like to get the community's feedback on how they are managing drop boxes for off-campus services.  I see at least 2 concerns, safety and revenue loss.  The safety concern I have is the some of the drop boxes are placed in very public locations or non-laboratory locations so the couriers can pick up the samples.  In some cases these samples are cells.  Supposedly, the cells have been inactivated.  But, those that work in cores observe all the time that some investigators do not follow the instructions.  There is the potential that live cells are being placed into these very public drop boxes.  The couriers who package and pick them up are not taking the proper precautions when handling bio specimens.  Also, couriers have no business in coming into any lab.

The revenue loss is another issue.  If a service is not provided by my institution, it makes sense to negotiate with a vendor to provide that service.  This compliments the institution's existing services.  However, I have an issue when a drop box competes with the services I provide.  I realize that there is no way to stop this because investigators are demanding this.  But, I believe there should be a fee associated with having a dropbox at my institution.  These boxes occupy space and in some cases require my personnel to collect and package samples.  If you have a dropbox for a service from one company, what prevents you from denying a dropbox placement for another company that offers the same service?

I would be interested in knowing how others are managing dropboxes for off-campus services.  Are you taking precautions to protect the safety of individuals who handle the samples? Are you charging the companies for the privilege of having a drop box on your campus?

I would appreciate any feedback on how your institution is managing the use of drop boxes for off-campus services.

Thanks,

Kevin

Kevin,

Very timely post as we've been informally discussing drop boxes at our campus and how they are competing with internal shared resource services.  At our university, some of box placements appear to have been arranged by individual PIs with no apparent university approval.  Figuring out how to navigate this won't be easy to navigate as we have a large campus, and the boxes are in multiple buildings under different college and center management.  

The safety (BSL-2) related concerns weren't on our radar but are an interesting discussion area as many labs are indeed now sending cells for Sanger, plasmid sequencing, or RNA-seq applications through these boxes.

I would love to hear how other groups are navigating drop boxes when they directly compete with services you offer.

Mandy Toland
Director, Genomics Shared Resource

The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center