Peak performance in Extreme Conditions

The Centre for Altitude Space and Extreme Environmental medicine (CASE) based at UCL were sponsored in their latest high altitude expedition by Labcold, the UK’s leading specialist manufacturer of

medical and scientific refrigeration, who lent the team of 40 doctors two of their best selling superfreezers.

CASE specialise in studying the parallels that exist between critical illness and the physiology of extreme environments with the aim of improving the chances of survival for the 1 in 6 of us who will spend a critical part of our life in ICU.

Dr Dan Martin, a Research Fellow from CASE and veteran of their Xtreme Everest expedition said ‘plasma work forms the core of our research investment, thus safe storage of samples is of paramount importance to us. The conditions under which we work in the field are fairly harsh and we believe that Labcold freezers would be ideal for this purpose’

The freezers had to undergo a series of tests to see whether they would be able to function in such an extreme environment including testing in a hyperbaric chamber. Labcold fridges and freezers are designed for optimum storage in ambient temperatures from 10 to 32oC but at nearly 5,000 metres above sea level and in temperatures below freezing, no one could be certain how these freezers would operate.

The advanced specification of the freezers meant they held temperature throughout and worked perfectly during the eight weeks they spent in the gruelling environment of the Margherita Hut. Required to store 1,200 precious samples, keeping a constant -40oC in both the cold of the mountain and the searing heat of the valley floor, Labcold freezers performed ‘faultlessly’ according to Mac MacKenney the expedition manager.