Tyler Olson ’25 has been working in the Johns Hopkins BioBank for about a year. There, he catalogs hundreds of thousands of biospecimen samples for different fields of research. Over the summer of 2024, he developed a device — an indicator vial — that uses a diluted ethanol solution with a filter to visibly display when a sample reaches a certain temperature, acting as a safeguard when samples are out of the freezer for extended periods of time. “At the BioBank, ensuring that the samples stored with us remain at the correct temperature at all times is vital to our mission,” he said.

A rising senior at the time, Olson got the idea when he was drinking a cup of coffee and thinking about coffee filters. He shared the concept with the team and immediately got to work. A few months later in November 2024, he presented at the regional conference for the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER) in St. Petersburg, Florida. The poster abstract was titled: Cryogenic Indicator Tubes: A Novel Solution for Detecting Temperature Excursions in Biological Storage.

“I feel very grateful that I had an opportunity to use my creative abilities and run with this project. I had the chance to create a completely new product that could significantly help how people store biological samples,” he said. During the process, Olson said he would find himself constantly coming up with new ideas to test in his spare time. Science teachers Frank Fitzgibbon and Cody Miles were very supportive as he worked on the project.

Olson will head to Syracuse University in the fall where he plans to study aerospace engineering. Although his intended major does not necessarily correlate with his project at Hopkins, he said that his “knowledge of material science and applications of creative thinking” can be applied to any STEM-related field. Another lesson Olson said he took from the experience is to be open to new ideas and criticism. “Even if it’s not what you want to hear at the moment, it’s extremely important to the development of a product.”

Congratulations, Tyler!