One of the unseen helpers of modern medicine makes most of what we take for granted in the healthcare system a reality: the ULT freezer. An ultra-cold freezer stores contents at temperatures ranging from −40 to −86 °C. These polar values guarantee that substances, biological samples and medicine reagents are conserved via the process of cryopreservation, ensuring that cells are free from the damage caused by unregulated chemical kinetics. These freezers are also used throughout cold chain-type infrastructure, a type of temperature-controlled supply chain that uses equipment and logistics to store, transport and distribute products. While the ULT freezers are commonly associated with the medical field, they are also used in the food industry, particularly concerning perishables, such as vegetables, seafood or meat products.

But how has this miracle product first appeared? What is its history? Like most modern appliances, it has evolved over the years, developing and improving from archaic forms to be the appliances we see and whose benefits we enjoy today. However, as with all other technological apparatus, its progress is not over. With innovations appearing all the time, it’s important to revisit the impact of this ubiquitous yet unassuming device on contemporary society.

The beginnings

The earliest records of a device resembling today’s refrigeration system point to an 11th-century invention by Persian polymath Ibn Sina, who created a system of refrigerated coils through which he distilled essential oils. Historically, ice and snow were harvested during the colder seasons and deposited in special cells and ice houses, where it was later used to cool water and beverages. The United States saw large-scale ice harvesting through the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the absence of low-temperature technology, a lot of food was vulnerable to weather conditions and spoiled fast, affecting food safety and human health. Fruit and vegetables, dairy, and meat are the staple elements of many diets, but for a long time in human history, their storage was tricky.

The Scottish physician and professor William Cullen assembled a refrigerating machine in the mid-1750s, but the device enjoyed no practical application in its day. Nearly two centuries later, in 1913, Frederick William wolf Jr. invented the first refrigerator employed in domestic use, known by its acronym Domelre. And from here onwards, the path was laid for the refrigeration process’s improvement to human life in many areas.

The present time

Nowadays, while domestic-use refrigeration is incredibly important and would probably be the first thing that pops in your mind if thinking about refrigeration, the way technology evolved means that one of its most important uses is in the healthcare field. These freezers ensure an unbroken cold chain, preventing the degradation of temperature-sensitive materials and samples. Without them, even the most basic blood tests would be difficult to achieve. They are vital in the storage of critical material in biorepositories, medical research facilities, BSL4 labs, hospitals, and anywhere valuable samples need to be stored safely. Recently, they’ve become associated with their extensive use during the global health crisis associated with the pandemic. While technology is constantly improving, for the last fifty years most Ultra Low Temperature Freezers were using cascade refrigeration to achieve the -80°C temperature set point.

In 2012, freezer failure at the world’s largest brain tissue bank, federally funded Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center, housed at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, was responsible for the loss of nearly 150 stored brains, including one-third of those used in autism research, potentially setting research in the field at least a decade back. Despite two alarm systems that should have alerted the staff as to the rising temperatures, the failure occurred nonetheless, with ramifications extending to the availability of tissue samples for the future.

More recently, one of the most observable ways ULT freezers have helped humanity is what we can notice in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, the need for vaccine freezers increased globally as they were necessary to preserve the inoculation bottles, which came with precise temperature requirements. Due to the scope of the health crisis, the samples needed to be kept in good order. Wasting them seems offensive when the health of so many people worldwide was severely affected, and so many lost their lives. The vaccination campaign would have been impossible in the absence of ultra-low temperature technology. The jab that protected so many people could not have existed without a device guaranteeing the frosty conditions which prevent any type of spoiling.

The ULT freezers of today are also equipped with systems that ensure the safety of their contents in the face of an unexpected incident. While a power outage can be annoying when it happens at home, for medical research, it can be an absolute disaster. Without backup plans the majority of samples can be lost during an event like this, it means that a lot of work can potentially go straight down the drain.

Nowadays, almost all medical & biomedical freezers have backup systems that can be used in the event of power failure, and sample security becoming the first priority for Scientists, Researchers, Lab Directors.

“Their biggest concern is sample safety, and by far the most common safety concern for ultra low freezers is compressor failure – frequent freezer failures impact their ability to focus on research, when freezer contents – critical research samples or products are lost, it’s a disaster we can avoid‘’, explained Jean Fallacara, Managing Director at inTEST Thermal Solutions.

The future

Technology is fast-paced and constantly changing. This is also true for ULT freezers, Jean Fallacara thinks that the future of cold storage is going to evolve into totally new technologies.

Some of the prospective applied science we might see emerging in the following years include fusion technologies, as well as derivations from Bose-Einstein condensate, using laser beams to take energy away from the atoms. BEC can cool to temperatures reaching close to zero kelvin, roughly −273.15 °C or −459.67 °F. These ultra-low temperatures are due to the extremely low density of boson gas, which can be up to 100,000 times less dense than air. These new approaches, laser based, are going to drastically change the way we produce cold systems in general.

With the increased demands for reliability, traceability and constant monitoring, the emergence of Web 3.0 brought cloud monitoring solutions into Ultra Low Freezers- The technology upgrades ensure the complete safety and adequate storage of medical contents. The protection of the samples is vital and their loss can contribute to loss of good reputation for the enterprise involved.

Newer alarm systems are also more adept at noticing changes in the temperature settings and notifying personnel in case something goes awry. With the rise of artificial intelligence applications across the medical field, many more developments are underway. inTEST knows that innovation is at the core of development, an asset that has led them to be globally recognized for their proficiency in temperature control and extreme thermal environment simulation.

The data protection factor is increasingly taken into consideration, ensuring that sensitive information pertaining to the samples doesn’t leak and end up in the wrong hands. One of the ways in which to ensure this advanced security is through supply chain platforms created via cloud connectivity, which guarantee regulatory compliance. A largely or even fully automated process ensures the retrieval and return of samples to cold storage to maintain optimal quality.

Keeping track of temperatures and the length of time as the freezer has been operating at temperatures outside the recommended range is similarly important to prevent undesirable effects. And with Metaverse at the doorstep, promising that the mode of healthcare interaction is about to change, making telemedicine more widely used, it’s not difficult to envision a future in which technicians will be able to interact with the samples they’re working on remotely.

Another area in which there’s still progress to be made is sustainability. A medical-grade freezer consumes an enormous amount of energy to maintain the low temperatures, meaning that it is responsible for a significant level of emissions. Newer guidelines advise that temperatures can be reduced in order to make laboratories greener. This is safe for the samples and can also protect the refrigerators themselves by decreasing the wear on their compressors.

It might seem like ULT freezers are very straightforward appliances. But given their complex history -and even more complex future – it’s time to acknowledge their benefits to the world.