Digitizing a National Medical Research Biobank

The Challenge

A human tissue biobank run jointly by three leading research institutions had built up an enormous archive — several hundred donor cases, each with over a hundred associated samples — almost entirely on paper registers and scattered spreadsheets. Finding a single sample’s history, or proving compliance to an auditor, meant digging through years of physical files.

What We Built

We built two connected systems: one for internal staff, and a separate portal for outside researchers who need access to samples without ever touching internal records.

Internal management system:

• Case registration with one-record-per-case enforced automatically, preventing duplicate entries
• Detailed pathology data capture tied to each case
• Sample inventory with a full issue/return ledger and running balances at all times
• Registers for specialist staff assignments
• Secure storage for compliance documents
• Reports and dashboards for oversight
• Four separate staff permission levels
• Key screens keep working even with poor internet

Researcher portal:

• External researchers register and submit sample requests with ethics approvals attached
• End-to-end status tracking: review, approval, allocation, shipment
• Automatic email updates at every stage
• Auto-generated transfer agreements and dispatch letters

The Result

Around 600–700 donor cases and more than 60,000 individual sample records have moved off paper and into a single, searchable system. Staff across three centres — roughly 30 people working at once — now have one shared, always-current source of truth, and outside researchers can request and track samples themselves instead of relying on back-and-forth emails.