Where can I rent -20/-80/Liquid-Nitrogen storage space? - (Feb/09/2012 )

It's a long story, but I may be shutting down my lab for a few months (and possibly a few years). However, I want to have the option to restart my research again in the future at a different institution. So, I'm looking for a place to store my plasmids, bacterial stocks, cell lines, etc. Do any of you know of places where I can rent scientific storage space? Maybe I could rent some -80 or -20 storage space? Or, even some Liquid Nitrogen storage space?

I can't be the first person who wants to put research on hold, but wants to store their precious reagents for future research. Thank you for any ideas!

Bob

Plasmids can be easily spotted onto filter paper and dried. They will keep for quite some time (years) like this. Most research labs have stocks of many of the common bacterial strains (e.g. DH5 alpha, BL21,...) and cell lines (hela, 293, etc) so it may not be necessary to store those at all, unless you have primary lines or stable transfections. Addgene and the ATCC have repository services for plasmids and cell lines respectively; I think Addgene even allows you free access to the plasmids if you deposit them.

Your options for storage depend on where in the world you are?