Highly flexible and accessible freezer drawer rack
A storage system for efficiently storing samples in tubes or bottles in an upright freezer is disclosed. A rack has at least one drawer—the drawer slides out for high accessibility. Tubes or bottles may immediately be stored or retrieved without using boxes. The drawer may be fitted with a removable top plate with at least one hole. Into the hole, an insert may be placed for stabilizing tubes of different diameter and shapes and for storing other samples such as cryo-vials and slides. More importantly, the system can be easily configured for storing tubes, bottles, boxes, or any combination thereof. In the prior art, bottles and tubes are stored in boxes which are then placed in the drawer. Moreover, bottles and tubes are stored separately. Boxes must be outfitted with cell dividers in order to store tubes, and only tubes of the same diameter can be stored in the same box.
1. Technical Field
The present invention provides a drawer rack system for efficiently storing tubes, bottles, and other containers in an upright freezer. Upon sliding a drawer out of its rack, tubes or bottles may immediately be stored or retrieved. Moreover, tubes of different diameter and size may be stored in this invention without having to use boxes and cell dividers. Additionally, the system allows for quick turnaround when allocating space among bottles, tubes, or boxes.
2. Description of Related Art
Efficiently storing, retrieving, and keeping track of hundreds or thousands of samples stored in tubes or bottles is no simple task. Today, hundreds or thousands of samples may be stored in a single freezer. Moreover, biotechnology's continued rapid advance will require ever more efficient storage, retrieval, and tracking systems.
For easy access, an upright freezer is often filled with drawers, each of which may contain one or more racks. Ideally, the tubes and/or bottles are stored in a drawer according to some logical relationship. Each drawer can hold one or more boxes. The boxes are either empty so as to accept bottles or outfitted with dividers to stabilize tubes of the same diameter.
Thus, a given tube could be stored in Freezer 1, Rack A, Drawer ii, Box d. While this system is organized and accessible, it still leaves much to be desired. In order to access a single bottle or tube, you must first identify, take out, and then open the box(es) of interest from each drawer. This is not only slow, but it also allows for mistakes (i.e. the tubes or bottles are placed in the wrong box and/or the box is placed in the wrong drawer). Furthermore, if you have tubes of different diameter, you would have to put them in different boxes. As mentioned above, current box dividers create cells of uniform size, meaning that a single box can only store tubes of the same diameter. Clearly, it would be far better if all of the logically related samples were easily stored and accessible from one drawer.
A need exists, therefore, for a system that can efficiently store bottles and/or tubes of different diameter in the same drawer without resorting to cumbersome and confusing boxes.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONThe present invention relates generally to providing high accessibility to centrifugal tubes and/or bottles within a freezer drawer rack. More specifically, the present invention is directed toward providing a flexible configuration drawer that is capable of storing bottles and/or tubes of different diameter without the use of cumbersome boxes. Boxes may still be stored in the drawer if so desired. Additionally, the invention allows for easy and quick configuration.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGSThe novel features believed characteristic of the invention are set forth in the appended claims. The invention itself, however, as well as a preferred mode of use, further objectives and advantages thereof, will best be understood by reference to the following detailed description of an illustrative embodiment when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
With reference now to the figures,
Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the storage system 200 depicted in
Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the exemplary drawer and plate system 300 depicted in
Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the exemplary face plate depicted in
The insert 520 of
The insert 530 of
The insert 540 of
The slide storage insert 550 of
Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the exemplary inserts depicted in
Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the exemplary partitioned drawer 600 depicted in
Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the exemplary tube rack 700 depicted in
The present invention is directed toward a storage system for providing high accessibility and flexibility. Specifically, the present invention is directed toward a freezer drawer rack for providing high accessibility and flexibility with respect to storing samples, particularly samples stored in tubes and bottles. One of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that the terms “samples”, “tubes”, and “bottles” encompass a wide variety of things.
Compared to the prior art, accessibility is greatly improved by eliminating the need for separate boxes within a drawer. A removable top plate with holes is fitted to the top of the drawer. Inserts can be fitted into the holes within the removable top plate. The inserts greatly improve flexibility by allowing tubes of different diameter to be stored together in a single drawer without resorting to boxes. The inserts can also be built to store other sample containers, such as cryo-vials and slides. In fact, bottles, tubes and boxes may in fact be stored in a partitioned drawer. Thus, samples from an entire patient or specimen could be easily stored in one drawer.
The description of the present invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description, and is not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the invention in the form disclosed. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. The embodiment was chosen and described in order to best explain the principles of the invention, the practical application, and to enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand the invention for various embodiments with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated.
Claims
1. A storage system comprising:
- a drawer having a top surface;
- a frame for accepting at least one drawer; and
- a top plate for removably placing over the top surface of the drawer.
2. The storage system of claim 1, wherein said top plate has at least one hole for receiving a sample tube.
3. The storage system of claim 2, wherein each said hole has a removable insert.
4. The storage system of claim 3, wherein said removable insert has a through-hole for stabilizing the tube.
5. The storage system of claim 4, wherein said removable insert with said through-hole has a bore size decreasing in size from top to bottom.
6. The storage system of claim 4, wherein said removable insert has at least one flexible inner protrusion for stabilizing tubes of different diameter.
7. The storage system of claim 3, wherein said removable insert has a chamber open at the top.
8. The storage system of claim 7, wherein said removable insert with said chamber open at the top has a removable lid.
9. The storage system of claim 3, wherein said removable insert has a slide housing unit attached to the top of said insert.
10. The storage system of claim 1, wherein said drawer has a face plate.
11. The storage system of claim 8, wherein said drawer with said face plate has a card holder.
12. The storage system of claim 1, wherein said top plate may cover some or all of the top surface of said drawer.
13. The storage system of claim 1, further comprising a separator removably inserted into said drawer.
14. The storage system of claim 1, wherein said drawer has a bottom plate for supporting bottles and/or sample tubes.
15. A tube rack comprising:
- a base;
- at least one vertical support member; and
- a top plate removably attached to said vertical support member, wherein said top plate has at least one hole for receiving a sample tube and wherein each said hole has a removable insert.
16. The storage system of claim 15, wherein said removable insert has a through-hole for stabilizing the tubes.
17. The storage system of claim 16, wherein said removable insert with said through-hole has a bore size decreasing in size from top to bottom.
18. The storage system of claim 16, wherein said removable insert has at least one flexible inner protrusion for stabilizing tubes of different diameter.
19. The storage system of claim 15, wherein said removable insert has a chamber open at the top.
20. The storage system of claim 19, wherein said removable insert with said chamber open at the top has a removable lid.
21. The storage system of claim 15, wherein said removable insert has a slide housing unit attached to the top of said insert.
Type: Application
Filed: Aug 5, 2003
Publication Date: Feb 10, 2005
Inventor: Zhenming Wang (Dallas, TX)
Application Number: 10/634,974