Biological sample tracking software built for regulated labs

Pro-curo tracks every biological sample your laboratory holds: what it is, where it is, what condition it is in, and who has handled it. Barcode-driven, fully audited, and designed around the traceability duties of the Human Tissue Act and the EU Tissue Directive.

When sample tracking runs on spreadsheets, it eventually fails

Most laboratories start with a freezer spreadsheet and a paper log. It works until the day it does not: a sample cannot be found, a location column was never updated, two people edited different copies, or an inspector asks for the custody history of a sample from six years ago.

Samples that cannot be found

A box gets moved, the spreadsheet does not. The sample exists somewhere in the freezer farm, but the record no longer tells you where, and someone loses an afternoon to a manual search.

📜

Custody gaps you cannot close

Paper logs record that a sample left storage but rarely who returned it, when, or in what condition. Reconstructing that history after the fact is slow and rarely convincing.

Inspection preparation that takes weeks

Evidencing donor-to-recipient traceability from spreadsheets means assembling the trail by hand, for every sample the inspector picks, under time pressure.

Every sample, its location, and its full history

Register a sample once and Pro-curo carries it through its whole life: intake, storage, movement between locations, aliquoting, issue, and disposal. Scan a barcode and you see the sample's current location, its linked project and documents, and every event in its history.

  • Full sample lifecycle from intake to disposal
  • Barcode and QR code driven, so movements are scanned rather than typed
  • Hierarchical location tree: site, room, freezer, shelf, rack, box, position
  • Configurable sample types, statuses and metadata fields
Biological sample tracking in Pro-curo showing sample records and locations

Chain of custody that stands up to inspection

Every change is logged: who did it, when, and what the previous value was. Because the audit trail is a by-product of normal work rather than a separate paper exercise, the custody record is complete by default and can be produced on demand.

  • Complete, immutable audit trail on every record
  • Role-based access control so actions are attributable to a named user
  • Donor-to-recipient traceability for tissue establishments
  • Retention of records over the long periods regulators require
Pro-curo location tree showing sample storage hierarchy

Answers without waiting for a report writer

The visual query builder lets your team filter, group and sort sample data without writing code, then export to CSV or produce a PDF report. Saved queries turn a recurring inspection or management question into a two-click answer.

  • Drag-and-drop query builder, no SQL required
  • Saved and shared reports for recurring questions
  • CSV and PDF export, plus scheduled recurring reports
  • Cross-entity search across samples, projects, locations and documents
Pro-curo query builder producing a sample tracking report

Who uses biological sample tracking software

Pro-curo is used by organisations whose duty of care over physical samples is the core of their operation, not a side effect of it.

🧪

Tissue banks and HTA establishments

Licensed establishments needing donor-to-recipient traceability and records that satisfy the Human Tissue Act and EU Tissue Directive at inspection.

🏥

NHS trusts and hospital laboratories

Clinical laboratories tracking human material across departments and sites, where information governance often means on-premise deployment.

🎓

Universities and research institutes

Research groups managing biobanks and study collections, where samples outlive the researchers who collected them and the record has to survive staff turnover.

Sample tracking and regulatory compliance

If your establishment is licensed, sample tracking is not an efficiency project, it is a licence condition. These guides explain what the regulations actually require and how an electronic system evidences it.

🇩🇪

EU Tissue Directive

What Directive 2004/23/EC and its implementing directives require on coding, traceability and reporting, and how UK law applies them.

Read the guide
📋

HTA compliance and traceability

How the Human Tissue Act 2004 and the HTA licensing framework shape traceability duties for tissue establishments.

Read the guide
🔄

Moving from paper to electronic

What changes, what to plan for, and how to migrate an existing paper or spreadsheet sample record without losing history.

Read the guide

Common questions

What is biological sample tracking software?

It records the identity, location, condition and custody of every biological sample you hold, from arrival to disposal. It replaces spreadsheets and paper freezer logs with one searchable record, and keeps an audit trail of who handled each sample and when.

How is this different from a LIMS?

A full LIMS is built around test workflows and instrument results, and can be large and costly to configure. Sample tracking concentrates on custody, location and traceability of the physical sample, so it is faster to deploy and easier to validate.

Does it help with HTA and EU Tissue Directive compliance?

Yes. Both require donor-to-recipient traceability and records kept for decades. A full audit trail lets you evidence that traceability at inspection in minutes rather than reconstructing it from paper.

Will it work with our labels and printers?

Pro-curo prints to virtually any label printer using your choice of labelling software and templates, including Brady, Zebra, SATO, Honeywell, TSC, Toshiba and Domino. Existing validated templates can be reused.

Can we run it on our own servers?

Yes, cloud-hosted or on-premise, and you can move between the two later. On-premise is common where information governance requires sample data to stay inside your network.

How do we move our existing records across?

The CSV import wizard maps your existing columns to Pro-curo fields and validates the data before import, so a freezer spreadsheet becomes a structured sample record. Onboarding and migration support are included.

See your own samples in Pro-curo

We run demos using your own data, so you can see exactly how your collection would look and how your team would work day to day.

Request a Demo