MEMS-based tracking tags to bring biobanking to mass market

January 20, 2011 // Phil Ling

STMicroelectronics and Bluechiip are to cooperate to bring Bluechiip's patented tracking tag concept into mass production for healthcare and a wide range of other applications including biobanking; the identification, tracking, retrieving, monitoring and storing of human biospecimens including tissue, embryos and blood.

The two companies are to cooperate in the manufacturing of unique MEMS-based tracking tags, aimed at a range of different markets, but initially in healthcare, such as biobanks.

As the bluechiip tracking tag is a mechanical device, it has the unique ability to both survive and read the ID of samples in extremely high and low temperatures, in addition to its immunity to gamma irradiation. This robustness therefore provides significant advantages over more traditional identification or tracking solutions, such as labels, barcodes or RFID technologies, and provides the necessary high levels of data surety in the rapidly growing and labour-intensive healthcare markets, especially in biobanking.

In March 2009, TIME Magazine highlighted biobanking as one of '10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now'. The growth of biobanks worldwide has been exponential; recent studies estimate that hundreds of millions of tissue samples are stored in U.S. biobanks and greater than one billion are stored worldwide.

In a recent report by Visiongain titled 'Biobanking for Medical R&D: Technology and Market 2010-2025', the market for biobanking (sales of biobank resources or services) in 2009 was estimated to be worth $8B and is expected to reach $45B by 2025. These unique tags will first be moulded into test tubes and vials for the expanding biobank market to identify, track, retrieve, monitor and store valuable and irreplaceable human biospecimens, including tissue, embryos and cord blood in liquid nitrogen.

Although the Bluechiip tracking technology has initial applications in the healthcare industry, it also has applications in pathology, clinical trials, biorepositories and forensics. Other key markets for the technology could include security, defence, industrial, manufacturing, waste, aerospace and aviation.

This new technology enables data to be read at temperatures as low as those reached in liquid nitrogen, approximately –196 degrees Celsius, and as high as 200 degrees Celsius. Data can also be transmitted through frost.

Bluechiip's tracking solution has also been field-proven to survive autoclaving, gamma irradiation sterilization, humidification, centrifuging, cryogenic storage and frosting. The new technology is based on MEMS-based resonators within a tiny and purely mechanical chip, containing no electronics whatsoever. The tracking tag, which comprises this mechanical chip and an antenna, can either be embedded or manufactured into a storage product, such as a vial or a bag. Easy identification, along with any associated information from the tag can be detected by a reader, which can also log the temperature history of the tagged items.

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