. 2021 Sep 24;105(20):7635–7650. doi: 10.1007/s00253-021-11531-4

Table 2.

Results of a survey on cryostorage and biobanking. To evaluate the potential awareness of cross contaminations in liquid nitrogen (LN) storage tanks, a survey was conducted between January 20 and April 6, 2021 (Fig. 2). In total, seven yes/no questions on cryostorage and biobanking were distributed using the scheduler provided by the German National Research and Education Network (DFN). The answers of 39 participants of 34 biobanks from 10 countries of 5 continents were evaluated using R version 3.6.2 (R Core Team 2019)

Question	Answer	Counts	Relative frequency (%)
1. Do you use separate LN tanks to store different types of organisms, e.g. cell lines, microorganisms, and viruses?	No	22	58%
	Yes	17	45%
2. Do you store samples in the liquid phase of the LN storage tanks?	No	21	55%
	Yes	18	47%
3. Do you use sealed sample containers (e.g. straws)?	No	26	68%
3. Do you use sealed sample containers (e.g. straws)?	Yes	13	34%
4. Do you use an automated LN storage system?	No	32	84%
4. Do you use an automated LN storage system?	Yes	7	18%
5. Do you use an air filter system in the LN storage room?	No	31	82%
5. Do you use an air filter system in the LN storage room?	Yes	8	21%
6. Do you check for microbial contamination in LN tanks?	No	32	84%
6. Do you check for microbial contamination in LN tanks?	Yes	7	18%
7. Do you think that cross contamination of samples in LN tanks is of strong concern?	No	27	71%
	Yes	12	32%