As Brooks Life Sciences cements its commitment to developments in the biobanking industry that accelerate research and improve patient health – the events at ISBER 2018 in Dallas, TX last week only magnify this dedication.

One of Brooks Life Sciences’ newest innovations, the IntelliXmark™ won the ISBER Outstanding New Product Award. IntelliXmark is an innovative instrument that prints text, linear barcodes, 2D codes, and graphics directly onto plastic sample tubes. It is resistant to alcohol, water, liquid nitrogen, and mechanical abrasion.

Brooks Life Sciences Product Marketing Manager, Mike Thurogood, highlighted that IntelliXmark can eliminate the need for less-reliable labels or marker pens in the lab.

“The IntelliXmark allows clean, simple, durable labelling directly onto plastic sample tubes. So, all that supplementary information such as patient IDs and lot numbers can be printed directly onto the tubes,” he explained. “It creates consistently legible text and barcodes at high resolutions for ease and convenience in the lab.”

Speaking of the place where science evolves – Dr. Andy Brooks, Chief Scientific Officer for Brooks Life Sciences, was honored with the ISBER Special Service Award at the annual meeting.

This distinction is given to those who have made exceptional contributions toward the goals of the society through performance of a special service or act on behalf of the organization. Dr. Brooks’ award is for long-term commitment and promotion of the applied side of biobanking.

As someone who has devoted the better part of his career to advancing science for biological repositories, Dr. Brooks has helped develop many of the standards and SOPs in use today.

“For many years, my work – both scientifically and on the service side – has been to develop quality assurance and quality control technologies to ensure high quality biological specimens that help link all the activities we do with sample collection and sample storage to the analytics, discovery, and clinical activities for use of those samples,” he shared. “So, this award is particularly special, because it’s a recognition of the contribution that my team and I have made for the different kinds of science and technologies we integrate into our service offerings and into our scientific programs.”

ISBER also announced that David Lewandowski with Brooks Life Sciences will assume the role of president for ISBER (International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories).

In his new role, Lewandowski will carry on best practices of the global biobanking organization as it creates opportunities for networking, education, and innovations – and harmonizes approaches to evolving challenges in biological and environmental repositories.

“I’m very humbled to have been elected ISBER president for 2018-2019. I look forward to working with the many volunteers who have made this society what it is,” said Lewandowski.

“In this next year,” he continued, “I think we’re going to be really focused on highlighting all those breakthroughs in biobanking and successes everyone has experienced. And we’ll be sharing those stories next year as we celebrate ISBER’s 20th anniversary in Shanghai, China.”