Thermo Fisher Scientific and Evans Analytical Group team up to apply pulsed GDMS to analysis of non-conductive materials, depth profiling    

Scientists analyzing non-conductive, high-purity materials will soon be able to apply powerful high-resolution glow discharge mass spectrometry (GDMS) to this task. This will open the technique, for example, to analysis of high-purity sapphire used for flat panel displays, ceramics, alumina powder and other desirable applications, including thin-layer depth profiling of hard drive components...

Six companies have recently signed tenancy agreements to locate within MediCity, the health, beauty and wellness innovation hub based in Nottingham.

This brings the total to eleven companies who have chosen to have a base in this part of the Nottingham Enterprise Zone in the recently refurbished building on the Boots site in Beeston. The tenant companies cover a range of commercial activities including sports body-care, the manufacture of anti-ageing chewable vitamins, the development of apps for remote health monitoring, the development and printing of nanomaterials for high-performance applications across a range of industries, new healthcare brand marketing and intellectual property experts...

Effective liquid level sensing is vital for many applications, helping to avoid erroneous results and reduce the risk of sample carry-over.

Tecan’s versatile Cavro^® Omni Robot now offers increased process security by allowing a combination of capacitive liquid level detection (cLLD) and pressure-based liquid level detection (pLLD) on a single platform. Designed to offer straightforward integration for precision liquid handling, the Cavro Omni Robot features built-in cLLD for up to eight pipetting channels, with programmable detection frequencies to avoid interference between channels....

Cogent TYPE-C silica LC phases from MicroSolv Technologies have the ability to retain polar solutes at high concentrations of organic solvent by aqueous normal-phase (ANP) and non-polar compounds under reversed-phase (RP) conditions.

Breakthrough has massive implications for life-saving personalised treatment. Previous tools were only accurate to within 700km.

Tracing where your DNA was formed over 1,000 years ago is now possible due to a revolutionary technique developed by a team of international scientists led by experts from the University of Sheffield....

A new whitepaper on the application of Analytical Quality by Design (AQbD) to particle size assessment has been published by Malvern Instruments.

AQbD is an innovative approach to the development and validation of analytical methods that brings the benefits of Quality by Design (QbD) to pharmaceutical analysis. Malvern’s new whitepaper, ‘Beyond SOPs – Exploring the rigor and requirements of Analytical QbD’, introduces the AQbD concept, explains the associated workflow and illustrates how to apply AQbD when developing methods for laser diffraction particle sizing. The whitepaper is freely available for download from the Malvern resource center....

Market leaders in temperature controlled microscopy, Linkam Scientific Instruments, report on the use of their temperature controlled tensile stage at various Chinese laboratories for the research into biodegradable plastics.

Global demand for environmentally friendly materials has increased drastically over the last few years making it a multi-billion pound industry. This in turn has driven the demand for the production and research into biodegradable plastics such as poly(butylene succinate), PBS. Teams from Beijing National Laboratory, Beijing Key Laboratory of Clothing Materials and Tianjin University in China have been looking into the structural characteristics of these plastics to see how they are affected by tensile forces...

A new technical report from FLIR Systems details how developments in optical gas imaging camera technology are allowing smaller Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) leaks to be detected from a safer distance.

Detecting leaks of volatile, gaseous compounds can be dangerous, therefore operational safety of any detection technique is of vital importance for maintenance engineers. With Optical Gas Imaging (OGI) cameras, they make use of non-contact measuring Infrared technology that can detect, in real-time, small leaks from several meters away and big leaks from hundreds of meters away...

Fast and cost-effective sulfur determination is an important task of process optimization and quality control in refineries.

Even very low sulfur contaminations can poison the catalyst and thereby affect its effectiveness. To avoid troubles feed stocks, process streams, and final products must be monitored precisely. The most reliable method to do so is the thermal decomposition of samples followed by UV-fluorescence detection of the formed SO2 (e.g. ASTM D 7183, D 5453 or DIN 20846). Dependent on the process step, the sulfur contents can vary in a broad range from a few ppb up to high ppm...

North Bristol NHS Trust and University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust in partnership with Public Health England (Bristol) and Weston Area Health NHS Trust have appointed CliniSys and Capita Healthcare Decisions to deliver an integrated laboratory information system for all areas of pathology across the region. The Capita and CliniSys solution was selected following a competitive tender and evaluation process involving all four organisations.

It will deliver the necessary platform and infrastructure to ensure that the required levels of availability, scalability, flexibility and business agility are supplied; essential in the modern healthcare environment where pathology businesses and services need to evolve and adapt to incorporate new services and laboratories. David Gibbs, Pathology Services Manager for North Bristol NHS Trust said: “With multiple parties involved this has been a complex procurement. A key requirement was the need to incorporate our genetics service - Bristol Genetics Laboratory - on the same platform...

UK-based contract research organisation Onyx Scientific has completed a development and API manufacturing project with US-based Neuronascent, Inc to support the company with its focus on neurologic disorders.

Neuronascent develops orally available, novel neurogenic and neurorestorative therapeutics that target Parkinson’s disease, Down syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease and post-traumatic stress disorder. Onyx Scientific assisted the Maryland headquartered firm with the process development and production of a 1kg batch of API that was used in the pre-IND submission along with supporting with initial stability data....

The University of Sheffield-based Insigneo Institute is developing an ‘in silico’ (computer simulated) model of the human body that will enable simulation of the effects of drugs and treatments on the human body.

An Institute founded one year ago at the University of Sheffield is showcasing the first phase of technology that will lead to the creation of a virtual human body and revolutionise global healthcare. The Insigneo Institute at the University of Sheffield has the objective of creating an in silico (computer simulated) replica of the human body that will enable the virtual testing of bespoke treatments.  When complete, the Virtual Physiological Human will transform the economics and practicalities of modern medical treatment and medical research...

Kaluza for Gallios software combines cutting edge data acquisition tools with remarkable ease of use to increase efficiency and performance in the cell characterization and analysis workflow of core research laboratories. Researchers at all levels of experience can learn the system quickly using this next generation acquisition software for the Beckman Coulter Gallios cytometer...

Asynt reports on how the School of Chemistry at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia has invested in a range of its DrySyn MULTI heating block systems to support its ground breaking synthetic research in photovoltaics, water splitting and nanoimaging.

In order to improve safety in his laboratories, Leone Spiccia, Professor of Chemistry at Monash University sought laboratory apparatus to replace oil bath systems traditionally used for all general syntheses. He comments  “After a lengthy evaluation process we decided to switch to DrySyn heating block systems as they are inherently safer to use than heated oil baths, avoiding the risk of oil spillage that can lead to burns when hot or may cause someone to slip over”. Professor Spiccia added “We are using DrySyn products inside our nanoimaging team...

Over the next few years, the University Medical Center (UMC) Utrecht and Quirem Medical will be working closely together to maximize the benefits of using holmium microspheres to treat liver cancer patients worldwide.

Due to aging population in Europe the number of test volumes are increasing with 7,8% per year. This means an increase of more than 40% of the workload within 5 years time.

Researchers from the Département Environnement et Agro-biotechnologies at the CRP - Gabriel Lippmann in Luxembourg use Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis for toxicology studies 

The Département Environnement et Agro-biotechnologies (EVA), of the Centre de Recherche Public - Gabriel Lippmann, Luxembourg, employs NanoSight Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA) method from Malvern Instruments to perform environmental analysis and toxicological testing of nanoparticles...

Oxford Gene Technology (OGT), The Molecular Genetics Company, has released a new application note detailing the technical evaluation of two DNA labelling kits, where OGT’s CytoSure Genomic DNA Labelling Kits were found to be quicker and more accurate than a leading alternative.

Achieving efficient and uniform labelling of both test and reference DNA samples is critical for aCGH studies, enhancing data accuracy and interpretation. By ensuring greater accuracy, OGT’s kits vastly improve the identification of breakpoints and even the smallest aberrations, providing robust and invaluable insights into the underlying cause of genetic disorders... 

The dramatic improvement in outcome for children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia is one of the major achievements in hematology in the last 40 years. However, while 90% of children with this disease can now be cured, the outlook has not been so good for the less common type of childhood leukemia, acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

Although only 1 in 7 children with leukemia have AML, half of these children will die from their disease. The challenge now is to harness the new developments in genomics to improve the outcome for these children. At the 19^th Congress of the European Hematology Association (EHA), we will learn about the state-of-the-art in management of childhood AML.  New concepts in the way AML develops and the way AML cells 'hijack' the main sites of normal blood production within the body will be presented....

EU support boosts development of therapeutic vaccines against Parkinson's and Multiple System Atrophy. AFFiRiS leads consortium.

An international consortium of top European research teams has received significant EU funding for the development of therapeutic vaccines against Parkinson's Disease (PD) and Multiple System Atrophy (MSA). Led by the Austrian biotech company AFFiRiS AG, the consortium will use a novel tandem strategy to advance the development of two therapeutic vaccine candidates in parallel. They are both unique in the potential for disease modification, something which is sorely missing in PD as well as in MSA. Both candidates target a protein called alpha-synuclein, which plays a key role in the onset and progression of PD and MSA. Additionally, the group attempts to identify biomarkers with diagnostic and prognostic value....

Dutch Software Company GENALICE today announced at the 14^th Bio-IT World Conference & Expo that it has started discussions with Intel® about a product development as well as a product delivery partnership.

On 12/12 last year, GENALICE launched its groundbreaking DNA processing software; GENALICE MAP. On a simple dual Intel® Xeon® E5 server the company was capable to map the short reads of 42 complete human and 42 full tomato genomes within 24 hours. The software is designed to optimally make use of the modern hardware architecture of these commodity Intel processors....