Have you considered a table called tblSamples and a table called SampleCategories?
tblSamples
SampleId
SampleCategoryID FK
OtherInfo about this sample
tblSampleCategories
SampleCategoryID
SampleCategoryName
SampleCategoryDesc
with category info such as
Code:
CategoryID 1
SampleCategoryName Cat1
SampleCategoryDesc Cat 1 is .....blah blah..
CategoryID 2
SampleCategoryName Category2 Name
SampleCategoryDesc Cat 2 is .....BBlah blaHH.....
Each Sample is uniquely identified by the sampleID, and indicates the category of sample using CategoryID