For Principal Investigators

Stop letting brilliant research
walk out the door

When your post-doc leaves, the samples stay — but the knowledge doesn't. Vial Tracker Free keeps your lab's institutional memory intact, forever, in Excel.

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"When Dr. Chen left, we realised we couldn't identify a third of the samples she'd worked on. That was three years of clinical specimens."
— The experience Vial Tracker Free prevents
The problem

The post-doc departure crisis is costing your lab

You've invested years building those cell lines. Your post-doc knows every tube by instinct — which box, which passage, which label scrawled in red Sharpie during a late-night experiment. And then their fellowship ends.

Within weeks, the lab freezer becomes an archaeological dig. No one knows what "Test-17" means. The clinical samples from the 2023 cohort? No one can match them to the notebook that left on the post-doc's hard drive. Years of irreplaceable work, effectively lost.

This isn't a rare catastrophe. It happens in virtually every academic lab, every time a researcher moves on. The question isn't whether it will happen — it's whether you'll have a system when it does.

What gets lost when they leave
Lost sample provenance — repeating experiments
Failed audit trail for grant reporting
Months of new researcher onboarding time
Clinical samples discarded — compliance risk
What you get

Built for the real-world lab

Institutional memory
Every vial's full history — passage number, freeze date, who created it, where it lives — stays in your lab forever, regardless of staff turnover.
Audit-ready records
Searchable, timestamped provenance for every sample. When your grant officer asks for tissue chain-of-custody, you have it — in seconds.
Zero learning curve
It's Excel. Your team already knows it. No new software to install, no licenses to buy, no IT approval needed. Open the file and start tracking.
Structured handovers
When a researcher leaves, you receive a complete, verified inventory — not a sticky note. Onboard their replacement in hours, not months.
How it works

Up and running in an afternoon

1
Download the Excel file
No installation, no account creation. One file, immediately ready for your team to use.
2
Log your samples
Each researcher enters their vials with location, passage, and metadata. The audit trail builds automatically.
3
Own your lab's knowledge
Staff change. Your freezer inventory doesn't. When you're ready to scale, migrate to Vial Tracker cloud in one click.
Also on this site

Other challenges Vial Tracker Free solves for PIs

Biosafety & Audit Compliance
Build an audit-ready sample inventory so the next inspection is never a scramble.
Freezer Failure & Recovery
Know exactly what was lost — and prove it to your institution — when a freezer fails.
Grant Resource Documentation
Answer reviewers' questions about your lab's biological resources with a single export.
Material Transfer Agreements
Track which samples are shared, with whom, and under which MTA — automatically.
PhD Student Handover
When your student submits, their sample knowledge shouldn't leave with them.
Publication Traceability
Trace every published result back to the exact vial it came from, on demand.

Your lab's memory deserves to survive

Download Vial Tracker Free today. It costs nothing, requires nothing new, and takes an afternoon to set up. The next departure is coming — be ready for it.

Download Vial Tracker Free — it's free
Works in Excel
No account required
Works alongside any LIMS
Made in Singapore