Electronic components vendor Maxell, along with laboratory equipment partners, has demonstrated a 96-rack test tube system that uses an embedded radio frequency identification (RFID) chip in each test tube to improve tracking of lab samples and specimens.

Maxell, a subsidiary of Hitachi Maxell, is probably better known for its consumer products, such as blank recording tapes and rechargeable batteries. But the company also has an extensive line of other electronic components, including the RFID chips used in the demonstration. The company's RFID technology has been in use for five years in Japan in a range of applications including employee ID cards, cash cards for vending machines, and cards used by SEGA in its Arcade Centre in Japan.

Additionally, Maxell's RFID technology is already being used within the life sciences to track biological samples. Specifically, Alexeter Technologies, which develops devices that test for anthrax and other biohazards, has been using Maxell's RFID tags in plastic cartridges that hold test samples.

Improved tracking

The recent demo, held earlier this month at the Lab Automation 2005 show in San Jose, California, showed how a complete RFID-enabled test tube system could be used to track and trace biological samples in a laboratory in a more efficiently than is possible using other technologies such as barcodes. The demo -- developed by Maxell in conjunction with Kobe Bio Robotix and Tsubakimoto Chain in Japan -- was held in the exhibitor booths of ABgene, a supplier of molecular biology reagents, specialty plastic consumables, and instruments for the life sciences, and Micronic, which supplies sample storage, tracing, and liquid handling products.

The system used an RFID antenna mounted on a 2.5-mm square chip. When the demo system is commercialised, researchers could use either a removable attachment (containing an encapsulated RFID chip) that fits on the bottom of a test tube or a test tube with a permanently encapsulated RFID chip.

With the 96-tube tray system, a researcher could scan the entire rack of test tubes or an individual tube. "You can scan down to the single tube level and know if any one tube in a tray has moved or is missing," said Jeff Giger, Maxell's national sales and marketing manager. "You can't do that with barcodes."

He noted that the system also allows for scanning of test tubes one at a time. That data can be written (and rewritten) to an individual tube using a dedicated Maxell reader/writer device. Giger said that the chip can hold more information about a sample than a barcode.

The RFID system is being positioned as a step up from today's barcode and 2D barcode approaches, which are widely used to track samples in a lab. "Barcodes and 2D barcodes have done well; this is just [taking things to] the next level," said Giger. For example, a researcher could add annotations or comments to each sample. This information would be easily available by simply passing the sample by the Maxell RFID reader (as opposed to having to look up a test tube's barcode number in a database on a separate computer).

Some Maxell partners see such features as a key to developing new systems. "We have seen the advent of 2D coding supersede linear barcodes for identification purposes. We now view RFID as a next-generation technology that similarly could transform how we track and trace specimens in the laboratory," said Simon May, business development manager at ABgene. "RFID allows wireless transfer of information from an RFID tag to an RFID reader. With no line-of-sight restrictions and the ability to store an order of magnitude more information, RFID potentially could accelerate and improve the quality of laboratory results and reduce operational costs."

One potential drawback to such a system is the cost. But Giger noted that there was a cost increase when companies moved from traditional barcodes on test tubes to 2D barcodes. "There was about a fivefold increase in cost to go to 2D barcodes," he said. However, many companies accepted the increased cost because of a 2D barcode system's benefits (such as better tracking and tracing capabilities).

Similarly, with RFID systems there would be additional benefits to help offset any cost differences. "You will have much more intelligent systems," said Giger. He said the RFID tubes would initially have about a threefold increase in cost over a 2D barcode approach. But as the technology gets more widely adopted, volume sales would drive the cost down.

Med school CIO tests RFID for patients

Meanwhile, an RFID chip the size of two grains of rice and encased in a glass container was implanted in back of the right arm near the elbow of John Halamka, CIO of Harvard Medical School, just before Christmas. The chip, inserted with a needle in a five-minute procedure, contains a medical identifier that when scanned by a reader can direct a physician or nurse to his medical records housed at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

Halamka, 42, is testing the use of the technology for its potential to help health workers to gain critical medical information about an unresponsive patient. Halamka, for example, an avid mountain and ice climber, noted, "If I fall and I am not responsive, wouldn't it be extraordinarily helpful for the people who rescue me to know who I am and my medical history?"

While he said he is not advocating that people get injected with RFID chips, Halamka decided to test it so he could describe the experience to patients who choose to take the same route. He also noted that the RFID chip -- which will last 100 years -- doesn't raise privacy concerns since it doesn't contain medical records, only an identifying number pointing to the records. "There is no way just from reading my tag for a merchant to know who I am. It is just going to be a number," he said.

Halamka's chip comes from VeriChip, and was cleared by the Food and Drug Administration for medical use in October.

Roger Kay, an analyst at IDC, said the chip in Halamka is on the bleeding edge of RFID tags because the technology is being used today mainly by retailers and for supply chain management to tag product pallets. Kay also noted that the infrastructure to support the use of RFID tags in patients -- mainly scanners -- is not widespread enough to make it useful.

However, he did note that the cost of the chips is dropping for manufacturing applications, and the cost reductions may prompt more uses in people.

"The big barrier is to get individuals to go for the implant," he said. "The cost of the individual chips is coming way down to the point where it becomes practical to have chips on individual items including people."