Cell Line Policies

Refund Policy

Incorrect cell line. If we shipped the wrong line, we will reship the correct line at no charge.

Contamination or difficulty growing cells. If the cells appear to be contaminated or fail to grow, notify the DGRC at dgrc@iu.edu; we will work with you to identify the problem. We will reship the cells without charge only in the rare cases where it is clear that the problem is our fault. In many cases, particularly if the line in question is a difficult one to grow, we offer a discounted reshipment.

Customs problems. The recipient is responsible for notifying the DGRC at dgrc@iu.edu of any documents that are required for clearing customs. We do what we can to avoid customs problems; when they occur, we work with the recipient to rescue the shipment from customs before the cells die and to prevent similar delays on future shipments.

Intellectual property issues

None of our lines now require a material transfer agreement (MTA). However, you are encouraged to sign the voluntary compliance agreement when you receive a cell line for which the Mitsubishi Corporation has an intellectual property interest. This form, with instructions, will be enclosed in all shipments that include the affected lines.

Ordering Multiple Vials of a Given Cell Line

Our ordering system permits you to order multiple vials of a single line, but we do not recommend that you do so; we have made it possible only because some users have requested it. One ampoule should be sufficient to recover the line and to prepare your own frozen stock. We have posted protocols or thawing and for freezing to assist you in both these processes. We strongly recommend that you thaw your frozen cells as soon as possible after their arrival. Frozen ampoules that are stored at -80 or in liquid nitrogen after shipment usually suffer damage from the changes in temperature during shipment and a return to storage temperatures, so it is not advisable to order multiple ampoules in order to store some as back-up. If you have problems recovering a line from the frozen stock we send you, please let us know, and we will try to help out with advice and, if necessary, with replacement cells.

Fees and Shipping

Our fees will be reviewed periodically, and will be revised as necessary to reflect our actual costs.

• Each cell line costs $340.00.
• A surcharge of $110.00/cell line is added if the cells are shipped as growing cultures (see below).
• Each order will be shipped FedEx Priority Express or FedEx Express International. You are responsible for paying this shipping fee, and it will be added to your invoice or your credit card payment. In some special circumstances, we use other shipping methods and adjust the shipping fee accordingly.

Cell lines are shipped as frozen ampoules on dry ice when it is possible. However, we have observed that while embryonic lines in general survive these shipments quite well, the much more delicate imaginal disc and CNS lines often do not. To minimize damage to cells during transport, we are now shipping all disc and CNS lines as growing cultures. All lines are shipped as growing cultures if the recipient is in a country that do not permit dry ice shipments, or a country where customs delays tend to be too long for dry ice shipments to be practical. In addition, we honor requests from our users to substitute growing cultures for dry ice shipment; this option is available in the on-line ordering form. We expect that the $110.00/line surcharge for non-dry-ice shipments will not be onerous to our users, because the decreased weight of non-dry-ice shipments usually reduces the shipping charge by a roughly similar amount. We welcome feedback from our end-users; your experience helps us to improve our shipping procedures. Some countries require permits to import of Drosophila cell lines. It is your responsibility to know of and to provide any necessary permits. The DGRC is not responsible for cells that are dead on arrival because of customs delays or that are returned to us by the customs office. nt.

Payment

We encourage you to pay for cell orders from the DGRC by credit card online. We also accept purchase orders.