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....
"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....
Porvair Sciences has launched a new second generation model of its Ultravap® Mistral - an automation-ready sample evaporator that offers throughput advantages to laboratories looking to optimise and accelerate sample preparation. Designed to remove the traditional laboratory ‘bottleneck’ of solvent evaporation, industry-leading sample drying reproducibility has been achieved by recent advancements in gas injection technology....
ZEISS has introduced a new compact microscope for digital teaching and routine lab work just in time for the International Day of Education, which took place yesterday. ZEISS Primostar 3 is a robust upright light microscope, which is made for daily work in a classroom or in a lab for tissue and sample examination in histology, cell biology, food or microbiology, etc. It is designed for long-term use and extreme durability....
Do you analyse common cannabinoids? This application note shows how you can separate a mixture of 11 of the most common cannabinoids using the robust and reproducible YMC-Triart C18 column. Until recently, cannabis and its derivatives were widely restricted under legislation which stated they had no medical value and carried a substantial risk of misuse. Policy is rapidly changing, and cannabis can now be prescribed for medicinal use in many countries across Europe.
Waters Corporation introduces the OttoTM SPEcialist Positive Pressure Manifold designed to improve the reliability and reproducibility of solid phase extraction (SPE). Equipped with easy-to-use, 21 CFR Part 11 compliant software and programmable pressure profiles, the Otto SPEcialist system provides confidence in SPE results by eliminating common workflow errors, reducing user variability, and documenting each method step to remove uncertainty and prevent duplicative efforts....
Microfluidic technologies are rapidly becoming the method of choice for micro- and nanoparticle production across a number of sectors, from cell biology research to drug development. This approach offers a number of advantages over traditional batch methods, including precise process control, enhanced reliability, and the ability to easily scale up production...
The Uniqsis range of Glass Static Mixer (GSM) chip reactor blocks produce an efficient, turbulent mixed reagent stream for flow chemistry reactions that is not diffusion dependent. To achieve highly reproducible flow chemistry scale-up the control of mixing and temperature is essential, particularly for highly exothermic or fast, mixing-dependent reactions. Now available in sizes from 270µl to 20 ml, the recently expanded range of GSM chips from Uniqsis can be used to perform reactions from -80°C to over 150°C...
Scientists have discovered a molecule that can selectively kill cells of a hard-to-treat subtype of breast cancer, which could lead to a new therapy. The study, led by researchers at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, is published in the current edition of Science Advances. Triple negative breast cancer is a subtype of breast cancer which is mainly treated with chemotherapy. Unfortunately, up to 70% of patients with this form of breast cancer develop resistance to treatment....
On January 1, 2021, the new Emmy Noether Group "Next Generation Antimicrobial Polymers" started its work at the University of Potsdam in close cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP. The goal is to develop antimicrobial polymers that can replace antibiotics. "The fight against antibiotic resistance is unfortunately becoming increasingly important....
Tecan has launched the Fluent® Mix and Pierce Workstation to provide end-to-end automation for whole blood pipetting in clinical environments. This newly developed instrument configuration is intended to standardize pre-analytical sample handling and mixing, and is part of an ongoing collaboration with QIAGEN to optimize sample preparation for latent tuberculosis (TB) testing with the QuantiFERON-TB Gold Plus assay....
Optibrium™, a developer of software for drug discovery, today announced the release of the newest version of StarDrop™, a comprehensive software platform for small molecule design, optimisation and data analysis. The new release, StarDrop 7.0, further extends the software’s compound design strategies, provides enhanced workflows, and seamlessly connects with Optibrium’s Cerella™ platform, delivering unique Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities to drug discovery scientists....
The Knife Mill PULVERISETTE 11 provides a homogeneous sample in a very short time due to its special design. Each subsample taken from any location in the grinding vessel is representative for the original sample and thus ensures an exact, significant analysis. And that for a wide range of different materials, regardless of whether the sample is dry, moist, soft, medium-hard, fibrous or oily. Ideal for sample preparation in the fields of foodstuffs or animal feed testing, agriculture and forestry, biology, pharmaceuticals and chemistry...
Beckman Coulter, a clinical diagnostics leader, today launched its Access SARS-CoV-2 IgG II assay in countries accepting the CE Mark. The new Access SARS-CoV-2 IgG II assay quantitatively measures a patient’s level of antibodies in response to a previous SARS-CoV-2 infection. The ability to establish a quantitative baseline to evaluate an individual’s immune response to the SARS-CoV-2 virus allows clinicians to assess relative changes of an individual’s immune response to the virus over time based on a numerical value....
Porvair Sciences provides a complete design and manufacture service to help customers develop new and innovative custom microplates for specialist applications. Porvair Sciences is widely recognised as a leader in the field of moulding ultra-pure plastic materials such as polystyrene, polypropylene and polycarbonate. With decades of experience and expertise in ultrasonic welding, surface treatment techniques, co-sintering of polymers / silicas, specialist assembly and a strong understanding of analytical applications...
Tomocube’s cutting-edge 3D quantitative phase imaging is set to play a crucial role in platelet research according to a new paper from scientists at the University of York. Using holotomography images generated by the Tomocube HT-2H microscope, the team were able to identify and quantify in single unlabelled, live platelets clear disparities in activation status and potential functional ability in disease states without experimental interference, such as from fixation or labelling...
The rapid spread of the newly emerging SARS-CoV-2 virus variant B.1.1.7 in Great Britain and other countries shows changes in the genome of the SARS-CoV-2 virus can lead to new biological properties. Most of the approximately 12,000 mutations in the genome of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that have been identified since February 2020 so far did not change the biological properties of the virus. However, some of the almost 4,000 mutations that have been identified in the spike protein....
The 2021 Gilson Product Guide is now available to download. This year, it’s packed with our liquid handling, extraction and purification instruments, enabling verifiable science and making lab life easier for researchers. With the current pandemic, this new guide also features solutions dedicated to COVID-19 research. We’ve consolidated our tools, technology, services, and resources to help scientists as they ramp up testing capabilities or study the virus...
Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology now offers the advanced imaging capabilities required for many biomedical applications, but can it replace the more expensive sCMOS (scientific CMOS) sensors? CMOS and sCMOS sensors have set the benchmark for both performance and value in machine vision in several industries, and this article will explain the benefits and costs of each technology for highly demanding imaging applications in biomedical and life sciences....
New England Biolabs® (NEB®) has announced the launch of its Luna®SARS-CoV-2 RT-qPCR Multiplex Assay Kit for real-time detection of SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid. This research use only (RUO) kit offers multiplex testing of up to 94 samples in a single 96-well plate, with the additional capacity for supporting sample pooling and high throughput applications using 384-well plate test formats....