The standardized and automatic handling of cryopreserved biological samples plays an increasingly important role in today’s in vitro testing. This is due to the trend to develop more complex disease models to increase the data quality of pre-clinical studies in terms of biological relevance and, subsequently, their successful translation into medical trials. A major contributor is the development of 3D cell culture methods generating spheroid shaped microtissues. In particular, the dawn of patient-derived models over the last two decades. However, these more sophisticated cell models demand improved handling protocols in comparison to 2D cell culture models. Furthermore, they are either in-house developments of pharmaceutical research labs or supplied by specialized manufacturers. The latter typically provide them as assay-ready consumables to researchers worldwide. This is on the one hand a challenging logistical effort and on the other hand it means that a researcher must start testing
directly once the material arrives. In this regard, providing such biomaterials cryopreserved is a liberating development.