Porvair Sciences has announced a new version of its Chemical Compatibility Chart that provides an easy-touse reference guide detailing the chemical resistance of membranes and matrices used in microplates to a wide range of common laboratory chemicals.

Employing tests performed at room temperature (25°C) - Porvair has compiled data as to the compatibility of different microplate matrices and membranes to a wide range of acids, alcohols, bases, esters, hydrocarbons /chlorinated hydrocarbons, ketones and other chemicals. In the tabulated chart - chemical compatibility data for each microplate material is listed as ‘suitable’, ‘ok for medium term use’ or ‘unsuitable’ thereby offering lab scientists the information to enable selection of just microplates constructed from materials optimised for their application...

Biofortuna, a UK based molecular diagnostics company with a proprietary stabilisation technology for molecular reagents, is expanding its custom service and manufacturing business with a £1.3m investment.

The new funds will enable the business to expand its freeze drying analysis and manufacturing capability to support both its custom service clients and the USA launch of its SSPGo HLA range of products through Abbott Molecular. The funding was supported by all of the company’s current investors; the Foresight Group (UK), EV Group, Catapult Venture Managers, Merseyside Special Investment Fund, private investors and management...

Thermo Fisher Scientific Establishes Pesticide Analysis Center of Excellence. Expertise, technology and knowledge-sharing available to food and environmental analysts.

Government and industry laboratories worldwide have a new resource for improving methods for monitoring and measuring pesticides in food and the environment. The new Thermo Fisher Scientific Pesticide Analysis Center of Excellence (COE) recently opened its doors in Runcorn, UK to help users apply the latest technology and expertise to challenging pesticide analysis in food and environmental laboratories...

EBCG is pleased to announce an exceptional event: Medical Devices Project & Portfolio Management Toolbox.

Building on success of their Toolbox series within Pharmaceutical and Chemical industry the Medical Devices PPM Toolbox aims to be Europe's leading conference to project and portfolio experts in medical devices industry. Due to the new game and rules on the market, it is necessary for medical device companies to develop effective portfolio management processes. They need to select those product ideas that have the greatest commercial potential, and thereby will maximize the return on their investments....

Once a James Bond fantasy, diamond-based lasers are now becoming a reality.

Ground-breaking research is harnessing the unique properties of diamonds to develop a new generation of lasers that could lead to many benefits, from better treatment of skin complaints and diabetes-related eye conditions to improved pollution monitoring and aeronautical engineering. A University of Strathclyde team has developed a new type of high-performance, ultra-versatile Raman laser* that harnesses diamonds to produce light beams with more power and a wider range of colours than current Raman lasers...

World’s largest supplier of custom nucleic acids opens SGD 6 million manufacturing facility in Singapore

Already the world’s leader in custom nucleic acid synthesis, Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT) has expanded its manufacturing capabilities to Singapore. IDT is now able to provide locally-manufactured oligonucleotides to researchers in Singapore and throughout the region from the company’s first synthesis facility in Asia. In January of 2012, IDT acquired the oligo business of Singapore’s top supplier, 1st BASE Pte. Ltd. Shortly thereafter, IDT began work to create a state-of-the art hub for oligo manufacturing and support dedicated to the Asian market. IDT completed the nearly SGD 6 million project in spring of 2013, and the Singapore company’s synthesis and other processes are now fully integrated with IDT’s operations in the US and Europe...

Multi-ion beam platform from ZEISS enables new solutions for the challenges faced in nanofabrication

At the Microscopy & Microanalysis trade show in Indianapolis, ZEISS ORION NanoFab received the 2013 Microscopy Today Innovation Award. Microscopy Today magazine annually presents this award to techniques and instruments that play a major role in progressing the field of microscopy. ORION NanoFab is a nanofabrication tool that integrates helium, neon, and gallium focused ion beams on a single platform. The helium and neon ion beams are based on the gas field ion source (GFIS) technology...

HORIBA Jobin Yvon S.A.S. (Palaiseau, France), operating worldwide under the name of HORIBA Scientific, is pleased to announce its recent agreement with AIST-NT (Novato, CA, USA) to distribute their Scanning Probe Microscope (SPM) product line in most of Europe, China and South America.

AIST-NT is a manufacturer of advanced SPM systems designed specifically for integration with optical spectroscopy, and has been a partner of HORIBA Scientific for AFM-Raman and Tip Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (TERS) system integration for several years. HORIBA Scientific is a leading spectroscopy equipment manufacturer, and is the leader in Raman microscopy. With the growing interest for nano-spectroscopy and TERS, HORIBA Scientific has collaborated with several SPM manufacturers to deliver a wide range of combined solutions...

The European commission has awarded a grant of 1.7 million Euros to fund the data centre industry's first major government-funded research and development program. The project will be led by the Data Centre Alliance (DCA) and the University of East London (UEL) supported by a European consortium of academics, regional governments and industry.

The program, called PEDCA, the Pan-European DCA project, came about as a result of industry body DCA identifying with its members that the data centre sector had never had the benefits enjoyed by most major industries of government funded research. Said DCA executive director Simon Campbell-Whyte, “It seems incredible that a sector as important to the European economy as data centres  – which every other sector now relies upon for its operations – has never had any independent government funded research into best practice, sustainability, energy reduction or training needs...

A presentation by technology specialist Dr Richard Tweedie, given as part of the recent UK Formulation Showcase at NanoFormulation 2013 (18-21 June 2013, University of Manchester, UK), illustrated the mutual benefits of an ‘open innovation’ approach to product development.

His talk focused on the ‘open innovation’ pathway adopted by Malvern Instruments in collaboration with The University of Leeds in the UK to develop the Aero S, one of the key sample dispersion systems for Malvern’s Mastersizer 3000 laser diffraction particle size analyzer. The Aero S dry powder disperser was launched alongside the Mastersizer 3000 in September 2011 and immediately delivered new capabilities to laser diffraction users, extending dry powder dispersion to even the most fragile materials...

Get 50% off BioStack™ when purchased with a Synergy™ Neo Multi-Mode Microplate Reader

Super-fast walkaway automation at a super-low price! Synergy Neo HTS Multi-Mode Microplate Reader is designed specifically for today’s screening and core laboratories. Synergy Neo has all the features you would expect from an HTS instrument, including multiple parallel detectors for ultra-fast measurements, laser-based excitation, super-fast plate stacker and high sensitivity on low volume assays. With a transfer time of about 6 seconds per plate, Synergy Neo’s BioStack plate stacker is the fastest on the market, allowing walk-away automation for short- or long-term assays...

Xylem’s YSI Integrated Systems and Services (ISS) has been awarded a contract for five marine monitoring buoys by The Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC). The buoys will collect high-quality data for researchers studying climate change in the Caribbean Sea, including the waters of Barbados, Belize, Dominican Republic, St. Lucia, and Trinidad & Tobago. 

“The Caribbean is a unique part of the world. Our waters are the ‘bread basket’ for the region, and we must be diligent in protecting and sustaining them,” says Dr. Kenrick Leslie, CCCCC executive director. “We are very excited to build our education and research infrastructure with the addition of this important technology project for addressing the impacts of climate change on the Caribbean ecosystem....

Agar Scientific, a leading supplier of microscopy accessories and consumables, has launched a new web site. As well as providing the latest microscopy news about accessories and consumables, the site now offers customers full eCommerce capability – a site that delivers useful, current content digitally online.

Agar Scientific's new website presents visitors with comprehensive and current information on  all products together with availability, delivery options and prices to enable straightforward online ordering of materials for their laboratory. Visitors can now request online quotations. This has been specifically tailored for education/research departments where detailed purchase requisitions are frequently required prior to ordering. As would be expected, the new site brings visitors the latest news about new products, special offers including end of line bargains. It also offers sign-up for Agar news and electronic newsletters, particularly for exclusive offers...

Under a new agreement, Victrix CMCC will use Cresset’s software for their computational chemistry consulting projects. Cresset’s Spark, Forge and Torch software will help Victrix clients to carry out structure based drug design projects and build predictive 3D SAR models for lead identification.

“Victrix is very pleased to be able to offer our clients access to Cresset's software,” says Dr Adam Kallel, CSO of Victrix.  “Cresset’s field based software significantly expands our ability to help clients with programmes that have little or no structural information.” Dr Kallel adds, “I have been a believer in field based methodology since I began work in the pharmaceutical industry and I was an early adopter of the Cresset technology.  I believe the XED force field that underlies Cresset’s software provides the ability to model molecules and their molecular fields in a way that is as close to high level quantum mechanics as possible, giving valuable insights into structure reactivity relationships...

The Benefits Of Analytical Ultracentrifugation In Nanoparticle Analysis

Join The Free Live Webinar. Join us for our latest webinar in our Education in Laboratory Technologies Series: “Analytical Ultracentrifugation in Nanoparticle Analysis.” Dr. Joshua Robinson will lead an overview of the theory and techniques involved in using Analytical Ultracentrifugation (AUC) in nanoparticle analysis, including: Ways AUC can uniquely identify how various components of a nanomaterial interact...

World First Clinical Trial Of New Cancer Drug By Australia’s Asbestos Diseases Research Institute

Today, Australia’s Asbestos Diseases Research Institute (ADRI) announced a world-first clinical trial into a newly developed drug therapy for the treatment of mesothelioma, a cancer which is almost uniquely caused by exposure to asbestos fibers. In most patients with mesothelioma the disease has significantly advanced before symptoms appear, making an early diagnosis and effective treatment very difficult. There is no cure. The average survival time after diagnosis is 6-18 months...

The PapilloCheck HPV test from Greiner Bio-One GmbH, technology partner for the diagnostic and pharmaceutical industries, has now received approval from the Dutch Society for Pathology following successful validation based on international guidelines for HPV-DNA tests.

Cervical cancer is one of the most frequent cancers among women. It is caused by a persistent infection involving certain types of human papillomaviruses (HPV). If this infection is detected at an early stage and the patient is given appropriate medical treatment, the development of cervical cancer can be prevented in virtually all cases. HPV tests, which detect the carcinogenic virus, therefore play a major role in cervical cancer screening...

German company LCTech GmbH, a supplier of products and methods for sample preparation and analysis, has been using Tecan Cavro^® components for many years and has incorporated a Cavro Omni Robot and Cavro XLP Pump into its latest FREESTYLE sample preparation workstation.

Dr Uwe Aulwurm, a Managing Director of LCTech, explained: “To meet the varied workflow demands of our customers, we wanted a modular solution that combined a general purpose liquid handling system with a range of different processing devices, including options for solid phase extraction, gel permeation chromatography and evaporation. The Cavro Omni Robot was perfectly suited to our needs, providing a very robust instrument which could be easily modified to access individual processing modules...

Program will emphasize a combination of training in classical clinical chemistry and specialty areas

Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) announced today sponsorship of a new, two-year, postdoctoral Clinical Chemistry Fellowship at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. Fellows will be trained in classical clinical chemistry, laboratory administration and research practices to prepare them for directorship positions at medical schools or hospital-based clinical chemistry laboratories. “Our mission is to develop the next generation of leaders in clinical chemistry,” said Robert Fitzgerald, Ph.D., DABCC, UC San Diego School of Medicine professor of pathology and faculty coordinator of the new Clinical Chemistry Fellowship program...

Within weeks of the Supreme Court’s historic decision declaring that human genes cannot be patented, two scientists have started a company that will democratize the human genome and give people direct access to their own genetic information - which can have an immediate impact on their health and wellbeing.

The court’s decision in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, on June 13, opened an era of genomic liberty, allowing people to look at the DNA for all of their genes – which had been hidden behind patent walls for companies that had a monopoly on such testing....

Crown Bioscience, Inc., a leading global drug discovery and development service company, today announces that it has acquired the shares of Preclinical Oncology Services Limited (PRECOS), a leading pre-clinical research and development service provider with a specific focus on oncology.

As a result of the acquisition Crown Bioscience becomes the world’s only contract research organization that offers such a comprehensive range of services. It will become the largest supplier of oncology services with a global footprint, spanning three major continents in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific...

Long-term storage of clinical samples will be critical to the growth of biobanking

The global proliferation of disease-based regional and national biobanks for clinical research has triggered a massive interest in long-term sample storage conditions. Simultaneously, it has spawned a requirement for good storage practices and standard operating procedures (SOPs)...