Shipping & storage support

If we ship directly to your country, you'll be able to order online from the product's datasheet by following the online checkout process.

We use distributing partners to help us ship to some regions. If your country is covered by distributors, then you will prompted to contact your distributor from the product's datasheet.

Using a distributor allows us to provide reliable service to countries around the world. It also ​allows us to provide support in your local language.

​​For our most temperature-sensitive products, which need to be kept frozen during transit, products shipped on dry ice will arrive in a polystyrene box filled with dry ice pellets. Products requiring dry ice are only shipped Monday to Wednesday. This means that the dry ice will never be left over the weekend and without time to sublimate.

Applicable products will arrive with blue ice packs to keep them cool (approximately 4ºC). On some occasions, the ice pack may have thawed by the time the product reaches you; this is usually perfectly fine, and will not affect product quality.

Some kits contain certain components which need to be stored on dry ice. In these cases, we will ship in a dual temperature box, with the most temperature sensitive products placed in a separate dry ice compartment.

​​Some of our products are stable enough to be shipped at room temperature, so will not come with any dry ice or ice packs. We only ship products at room temperature if we have experimentally determined that this will not affect product quality during shipping.

​​For individual products, shipping costs will be displayed on the datasheet. For multiple products, calculated costs will be displayed on your 'order summary' screen at checkout.

The destination, necessary packaging to keep contents stable and number of products in the order all determine the final shipping cost.

Make sure you select your region on the top-left corner of the website for appropriate shipping details to be shown. Different products have different shipping requirements to arrive stable. Note the product shipping cost itself as displayed on the 'order summary' screen at checkout.

If ordering a single product, you'll pay the shipping charge for that product, which is shown on the datasheet. If ordering multiple products, you'll only be charged for the item with the highest shipping charge. See example table below.

Our boxes are made of cardboard, almost always recyclable through your local authorities' recycling program. They can also be kept and reused for storage.

Our ice packs are made of recyclable high-density polyethylene (HDPE), which contains either a water or gel-based coolant. It’s worth checking your local guidelines, but these can often be recycled once the HDPE shell after draining the coolant.

Our products are shipped in expanded polystyrene (EPS) boxes to keep them cool.

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​Lyophilization allows for more stable long-term storage; however, the protein must be reconstituted before use. Specific considerations must also be made when handling lyophilized peptides and proteins.

Protein storage in solution is more prone to microbial or proteolytic degradation.

​Storage of protein solutions at room temperature leads to protein degradation and/or inactivity, which is also commonly caused by microbial growth.

Reconstitution concentration is important for protein stability. Solutions at concentrations lower than 1 mg/mL are more prone to proteolysis or inactivation because of low-level binding to the storage vessel. Because a higher concentration than 1 mg/mL may not be realistic in some cases, it is common practice to add “carrier”, such as purified bovine serum albumin (BSA), to 1 to 5 mg/mL (0.1% to 0.5%).

Various agents can be used to promote protein stability, such as cryoprotectants, protease inhibitors, phosphatase inhibitors, antimicrobial agents, reducing agents, chelating agents, and detergents.

Adding 25-50% glycerol or ethylene glycol can help stabilize proteins by preventing the formation of ice crystals at -20 °C, which can destroy protein structure. This enables repeated use from a single stock.

​​Protease inhibitors interact with the active site of proteases that hamper proteolytic activity detrimental to protein stock stability. Some examples are PMSF (0.1-1 mM), Pepstatin A (1 μg/mL), Leupeptin (1 μg/mL), etc.

​Phosphatase inhibitors inhibit several phosphatases to preserve the phosphorylation state of the proteins. If you don't add phosphatase inhibitors, this can result in reduced or no kinase activity or unexpected protein size.

Adding antimicrobial agents, for example, 1.02-0.05% (w/v) sodium azide (NaN3) or 0.01% (w/v) thimerosal, can help to prevent microbial growth.

​Most proteins contain free thiol groups containing cysteines and oxidation of these free thiols leads to the formation of a disulfide bond between cysteines. The majority of the intracellular proteins require these free thiols for their biological function. Adding reducing 1-5mM dithiothreitol (DTT), and 2-mercaptoethanol (2-ME, sometimes called ß-ME), can help to maintain proteins in a reduced state by preventing oxidation of cysteines.

​Adding chelating agents, like 1-5mM EDTA, groups proteins together, and helps to maintain the reduced state.

​​Adding detergents such as 0.01% Tween-80 help maintain the stability of the hydrophobic protein in aqueous solution. This also reduces the probability of proteins binding to the storage tube.

Antibodies are relatively stable proteins. We ship our antibodies with ice packs to provide a controlled temperature during transit and ensure that stability is not impaired.

Proteins and peptides that are sold in liquid form/solution are sensitive to high temperatures, so are shipped on ice packs or dry ice. Lyophilized proteins and peptides are more stable and are shipped on ice packs or at room temperature.

Upon receipt, care should be taken to store these products as directed on the datasheet as quickly as possible. Most proteins can be snap-frozen in liquid Nitrogen and stored at -20ºC.

Individal components are shipped according to their stability. Most kits will be shipped in a box with ice packs, with any particularly temperature-sensitive reagents shipped in dry-ice compartments.

Conjugation kits are shipped at room temperature. We don't use ice packs because moisture from condensation could degrade the conjugate during shipping. Upon receipt, these kits should be stored at -20°C.

Cell lines and lysates are very temperature sensitive, and are shipped on dry ice. On receipt, cells should be stored in liquid Nitrogen for long-term stability.

Biochemicals in our range of agonists, activators, antagonists, and inhibitors are shipped under different conditions depending on their tested short-term stability. These products comprise a range of different molecules with different properties, so make sure you follow the storage instructions on the datasheet.