This past August, UNC’s own BioSpecimen Processing Facility, lead by Dr. Patricia Basta, won The Freezer Challenge, a cold storage contest coordinated by My Green Lab and the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories.
Over two hundred and twenty-two labs, representing 113 research institutions worldwide, completed the competition. The Basta lab was one of the twelve recipients of this year’s Lab Award, winning in the category of “biorepository/core facility/shared cold storage award.”
Previous to this, the Basta lab earned two honorable mentions in the My Green Labs Freezer Challenge and won the UNC Freezer Challenge in 2020.
In many labs, refrigeration equipment accounts for a large portion of electricity consumption. Through friendly competition, the Freezer Challenge helps labs optimize the sustainability of their cold storage management systems. During the Challenge, the Basta lab vacuumed, cleaned out, and defrosted freezers, converted one freezer to a denser storage format, continued to expand sample barcoding, and retired two old, inefficient freezers. Through this hard work, the Basta lab saved a total of 200 kWh per day!
Dr. Basta’s research focuses on biorepository science, biomarker discovery, and genetic epidemiology. The BioSpecimen Processing Facility is located in the Michael Hooker Research Center at the School of Public Health.
UNC Green Labs would like to extend our utmost congratulations to Dr. Basta and the UNC BioSpecimen Processing Facility team!