How to store blood in a -20 freezer

[cameron]

I am planning to an effort to measure my telomeres in a few months.  I have a vial of my blood that was spun down and given to my by a lab yesterday.  But, I need to find a way to store it for a few months.  Anyone know a good DIY protocol for storing it at -20 C?

Thx,

Cameron

[Brian Degger]

Check out storing on blotting paper like the blood spots taken from newborns for pku tests, apparently the Dna is stable for years.

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[Jeswin]

What do you mean by spun down? Why don't you try and purify the DNA
and store that?

I assume this is DIY work, so do be careful.

[Avery louie]

Most freezers are -20, you may be able to just stick it in the freezer.

--A

On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 11:41 AM, Brian Degger <brian....@gmail.com> wrote:

[Nathan McCorkle]

googling "blood storage glycerol" (I also tried appending -20 to that)
turned up some interesting stuff on the first page....

looks like EDTA allows fridge storage, but for -80C 40% wt/vol
glycerol is pretty good. So I'd say do both.

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Nathan McCorkle
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College of Science, Biotechnology/Bioinformatics

[mad_casual]

I semi-routinely (once every 3 mo.) analyze my blood for biochemical markers. I've done some DNA work on it as well (SNP genotyping).

KISS for DNA work; the RBCs are useless. Carefully collect as much of the plasma (I assume there are anti-coagulants in your sample), and store that at -20 to -80 and as necessary. As usual, avoid freeze/thaw cycles. Spotting on cards is also a great idea.

If you want to get fancy and/or need a more concentrated sample the overwhelming majority (60-80%) of DNA in a blood sample comes from leukocytes, forget the plasma and the RBCs and just pull of the buffy coat (1 mm - 1 cm "white" coat between the plasma and the RBCs in a centrifuged sample) and store that.

Whole blood is more like a tissue or an organ than a DNA sample. If you don't feed it to keep it alive it will degrade. Even if you feed it (Citrate, Phosphate, and Dextrose), it will degrade, just slower. Unless you plan to put the blood back, there's no need to go to that trouble. In the future, unless you plan to look at chemical markers, there's no need to have the lab centrifuge it. The blood will separate on its own sitting in the fridge for an hour or two and, if that's not fast enough, spinning at arms length will work. Always use universal precautions when working with someone else's blood or when working with your blood around other people.

[Phil]

How did you get a lab to give you your own blood?  Here in the US, every hospital/doctor/lab l've spoken to says there are strict rules against doing that.  Once you clip off a toenail, it becomes a biohazard.

[mad_casual]

Yeah, 'biohazard' is just CYA. I know plenty of labs that will scream 'HIPAA' at you until you go away. They will tell you that they'll only release them with the consent of the physician who referred you for testing. My experience with M.D.s in this regard has been mixed. Most phlebotomy programs at local community colleges are more than willing to draw blood just to have a real body with actual veins to work on. If you talk with any phlebotomist, as long as you don't faint at the sight of blood and don't ask them to draw more than one or two tubes, they'll be happy to. Lastly, I would recommend supervision when learning, but getting one's own blood out of one's own veins safely isn't difficult. Most junkies on the street have zero medical training and are too successful at getting needles into their own veins, even while stoned.

[Nathan McCorkle]

On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 3:04 PM, mad_casual <ademl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Lastly, I
> would recommend supervision when learning, but getting one's own blood out
> of one's own veins safely isn't difficult. Most junkies on the street have
> zero medical training and are too successful at getting needles into their
> own veins, even while stoned.

Bringing some street junkies in to teach a class on DIY blood
withdrawl would probably generate as much if not more press than the
"homeless hotspot"

[cameron]

My doctor gave them approval. He's progressive.

[Cory Geesaman]

If you don't mind a bit of poking around you can probably find someone who was in the Army and took a combat lifesaver course.  About 60%-70% of soldiers deployed go through a combat lifesaver course that entails learning how to hit a vein and get an IV running - from what I saw when I was forced to take that course (I pass out every time I get stuck with a needle of any kind - so I tried to get myself pulled from the class without success - I probably repressed a good chunk of that class) the classes average about 3% - 6% of people that are bad enough to pop a vein at some point in the course - most are able to hit a vein on the first attempt by the end of the course and you have to re-qualify every 6 months after taking it, but it likely wears off with lack of use.

[John Griessen]

On 10/22/2012 11:58 AM, Ellen Angus wrote:
> If I wanted to use blood within an art piece..would there be anything that Id need to take into account before hand..are there any
> dangers that gallery goers would be subjected to?

If you let them touch it, they could get it mixed with their own in a scratch and
get diseases it might carry. Even if contagion is unlikely, you would get sued by someone.
It rots quickly. Will smell just as bad as any dead animal meat
in 2 days.

[Jeswin]

On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 12:58 PM, Ellen Angus
<ellen.p...@googlemail.com> wrote:

> Is it possible to store blood in a regular fridge and also freezer for long
> term storage?

It would degrade and probably form cryo-precipitates due to the
freeze-thaw cycles in a regular freezer.

> If I wanted to use blood within an art piece..would there be anything that
> Id need to take into account before hand..are there any dangers that gallery
> goers would be subjected to?
>

Probably not the best idea. Too much of an ick factor but that's what
you're after, right?

[Brian Degger]

Have you seen marc quins work ?
http://www.odditycentral.com/pics/artist-creates-creepy-self-portraits-out-of-his-own-frozen-blood.html
He stores his blood at -15C. One idea is that you don't use a frost
free freezer. That goes for all biologicals as frost free freezers
fluctuate in temp and denature proteins.

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