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Article: GENE POOLING COMPANY BUILDS WORLD'S LARGEST LIBRARY OF GENETIC MATERIAL
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- August 22, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2001 The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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CAMBRIDGE - When the FedEx driver rings the bell on the loading
dock at Genomics Collaborative Inc., it's a call to action.
The driver unloads bundles of special envelopes marked with the
biohazard symbol: fresh samples of tissue and blood from patients
nationwide. Within minutes, technicians scurry to open individual
plastic kits. Glass vials of blood, each identified only by a bar
code, are quickly scanned into the computer - like a giant grocery
checkout in reverse.
Processing the samples is a carefully choreographed blend of
tedious hand work and blazingly fast robotic automation. Technicians
must scan and stack each vial by hand. But nearby, a device the size
of a pizza oven is ...