"Transforming R&D: Digital innovation in the pharmaceuticals and chemicals industries," a new report by MIT Technology Review Insights, explores how leading pharmaceuticals and chemicals companies are using artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and other digital technologies to transform scientific research and enhance R&D performance. The report, produced in association with PerkinElmer Informatics, is based on in-depth interviews with R&D executives at organizations including Novartis, Roche, Merck, BASF, and Syngenta....
An international consortium, led by scientists in Scotland, have devised a Coronavirus Toolkit which gives researchers from across the world open access to materials, including antibodies and genetic tools, which can be easily and immediately ordered via an online portal – to further research into COVID-19. The toolkit was designed and validated by scientists at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research...
Veolia Water Technologies UK’s (VWT UK) innovative PURELAB® Quest unit has been selected to provide a complete purified water solution for a newly refurbished laboratory at University College London (UCL). The compact unit, which delivers all required types of purified water, was chosen to help maximise the available workspace. Located on the main UCL campus, the Anatomy Building has been undergoing phased updates to much of its interior, including several separate lab areas...
Avacta Group plc, the developer of Affimer® biotherapeutics and reagents, announces that it has received the first data for its SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen test from ongoing clinical studies in Europe and the UK. These data show excellent performance of the test in identifying patients with an infectious viral load and no false positive results. Avacta’s SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen test has been developed to identify infectious individuals so that they can isolate promptly and reduce the spread of COVID-19....
Linkam Scientific’s PE120 Peltier system formed part of the experimental set-up used to develop a radical new diagnostic test for the SARS CoV-2 virus at Ohio State University (OSU), Columbus, Ohio, USA. The global outbreak of COVID-19 has prompted scientists to focus their research on rapid and robust diagnostic tests. Reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assays – the ‘gold-standard’ for molecular clinical diagnostics – became available quickly, however this provides relatively long characterisation times...
INTEGRA Biosciences’ EVOLVE manual pipettes and VOYAGER electronic adjustable tip spacing pipettes are both integral parts of the lab workflows at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), where researchers are investigating the evolution and ecology of a fascinating group of fish that includes a popular aquatic pet, the guppy. Samantha Levell, a PhD candidate at UCR, explained...
Smiths Detection, a global leader in threat detection and security screening technologies, reports that its BioFlash® Biological Identifier is capable of detecting SARS-CoV-2 in the air following tests conducted by the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). The tests were performed using live SARS-CoV-2 virus in a Biosafety Level 3 containment area at Fort Detrick, Maryland...
Academics at Northumbria University, Newcastle, have been backed by the Government’s Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) to develop an antiviral coating suitable for use on everyday surfaces. DASA, part of the Ministry of Defence, has commissioned a research team from Northumbria to develop a new type of multifunctional antiviral coating which could form part of the country’s biodefence - crucial to combatting public health crises such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic....
FairJourney Biologics (FJB) and IONTAS, leaders in the discovery and optimization of antibodies, have announced the launch of a new protein sciences division, Flow Eighteen38. The new business unit has been introduced to accelerate customer antibody research projects, by delivering reagents, purified proteins, and characterization data on antibody panels and leads....
Labs are increasingly choosing INTEGRA Biosciences’ liquid handling instruments to help them address growing workloads associated with Human papilloma virus (HPV) screening. Several studies have recently suggested that PCR-based screening is more accurate and offers earlier detection of pre-cancerous growths than the conventional Papanicolaou (Pap) test and liquid-based cytology, leading to a gradual shift towards molecular diagnostics approaches....
Illumina, Inc. has selected nine new genomics companies to join the second global funding cycle of Illumina Accelerator in the U.S. and UK. The global company creation engine, focused on partnering with entrepreneurs to build breakthrough genomics startups, invested in four companies for the second funding cycle of Illumina Accelerator Cambridge, UK and five companies for the twelfth funding cycle of Illumina Accelerator San Francisco Bay Area....
To take AI development in pathology to the next level, a European consortium combining leading European research centres, hospitals as well as major pharmaceutical industries, is going to develop a repository for the sharing of pathology data. The 6-year, €70 million project called BIGPICTURE, will herald a new era in pathology. Sectra engages in the new EU Innovative Medicines Initiative project BIGPICTURE to construct a large-scale database of pathology images....
Ahead of the upcoming missions to search for evidence of life on Mars, researchers used Linkam’s HFS600 stage in temperature-controlled experiments to study the formation of mixed sulfates – a key indicator of biological processes on the red planet. NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover will land on Mars on 18 February 2021, to search for signs of life and explore the planet's geology....
Accelerated Technology Laboratories, Inc. (ATL), a leader in Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS), continues the 2021 LIMS Webcast Series on Wednesday, February 17th with LIMS Can Help Your Laboratory Manage COVID Challenges. The webcast will offer guidance on how a LIMS can be utilized to help organizations manage their laboratory operations and support essential workers during the current COVID-19 pandemic....
Porvair Sciences announce the availability of a new guide that makes selection of the optimum Solid Phase Extraction (SPE) microplate for your application both quick and easy. SPE is a widely used method of sample preparation that concentrates and purifies analytes from a solution by means of absorption, followed by the elution of the analyte with a solvent appropriate for instrumental analysis, with techniques such as LC-MS...
INTEGRA’s VOYAGER adjustable tip spacing pipette and VIAFLO lightweight electronic pipette are the perfect lab companions for agricultural research into microbial evolution. Bacterial evolution studies involve analysis of large sample numbers, requiring streamlined, reproducible pipetting processes to effectively characterize the features of different strains. Dr Astrid Altamirano-Junqueira, who completed her doctoral studies into the evolution of bacterial motility in the School of Biological Studies at Reading University, discussed...
A UK biotech company developing a novel treatment for Covid-19 has welcomed NHS plans to make Covid-19 treatments available to patients as soon as possible. The CEO of NHS England, Sir Simon Stevens, recently highlighted the importance of therapeutic treatments to help the UK return to a more normal way of life, predicting that many of these treatments will be available to Covid-19 patients in 6 – 18 months....
Avacta Group plc, the developer of Affimer® biotherapeutics and reagents, announces that it has entered into a collaboration agreement with Bruker Corporation (Billerica, MA) (NASDAQ: BRKR, “Bruker”) to evaluate the Affimer-based, bead assisted mass spectrometry (“BAMS™”) SARS-CoV-2 assay, that the Group has developed with Adeptrix Inc. (Beverley, MA) (“Adeptrix”)...
In an international collaboration, researchers have characterized the first significant SARS-CoV-2 mutation,N439K, occurring within the virus’s spike protein receptor binding motif (RBM). The N439K mutation, which was originally discovered in the first half of 2020 and is considered to be one of the first important SARS-CoV-2 RBM mutations, because it occurred within the receptor binding domain (RBD) in the virus’s Spike protein that interacts with the human ACE2 receptor...
Venomtech® – a leading UK-based biotechnology company founded in 2010 – is harnessing the power of natural venoms produced by animals to generate compound libraries that are used in drug discovery studies. With a collection of nearly 200 species, from spiders to scorpions and even centipedes to study, the team at Venomtech is using INTEGRA’s VOYAGER adjustable tip spacing pipette to increase efficiency in the production of venom-based screening assays....
Eppendorf and the journal Science are now accepting applications for the 2021 Eppendorf & Science Prize for Neurobiology. This annual international research prize of US$25,000 is awarded to young scientists for their outstanding contributions to neurobiological research based on methods of molecular and cell biology. Researchers who are not older than 35 years are invited to apply by June 15, 2021....
On Tuesday January 12th, in Nature Communications, strong preclinical results for a new COVID-19 vaccine, developed by the team of Prof. Salanti from University of Copenhagen, ExpreS2ion Biotech, its joint venture partner AdaptVac and the PREVENT-nCoV consortium, was published. Based on these results, a clinical trial application (CTA) for a clinical Phase I/II study for the COVID-19 vaccine has been submitted....