Abcam and Beckman Coulter have announced a collaboration to develop one of the world's most sophisticated automated systems for the production of research-scale amounts of monoclonal antibodies.
The move is part of Abcam's new, multi-million pound high throughput laboratory which will enable it to scale up its in-house antibody production and transform it into a 'world-leading producer of high-quality antibodies' to complement its existing catalogue business.
"We have always produced a number of our own polyclonal antibodies. The extension to making our own monoclonal antibody producing cell lines will enable us to expand greatly our production whilst maintaining the high quality of our products," said Jim Warwick, Abcam's managing director.
Applied Isotope Technologies (AIT) has received $150,000 of investment from the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse (PLSG). AIT is an early stage business focussed on manufacturing reagents that enable the EPA-approved Speciated Isotope Dilution Mass Spectrometry (SIDMS) method to measure the toxicity of metal-speciated compounds in biological fluids
"Today, there is significant focus on environmental health and the thousands of chemicals to which human beings are being exposed," said John Manzetti, CEO of the PLSG.
"The AIT SIDMS method is proving to show unprecedented accuracy at nanogram level analyses and it is adaptable to every individual case when there is a need to measure very small amounts of complex chemicals, accurately. This accuracy, adaptability and the simplicity of their testing kits has the potential revolutionise the laboratory work environment."
Horiba Instruments is to become the exclusive distributor of Clemex Technologies' PS3 particle size and shape microscopy-based analyser in North America, Central America, Puerto Rico and South America.
The instrument will be renamed the Clemex/HORIBA PS3 and will be sold into the metallurgical, mineral and pharmaceutical markets.
"The PS3 instrument complements our line of Laser Diffraction Particle Size analyzers and will allow us to offer our customers shape information about their particles in addition to size data, which are important parameters in the manufacturing and process control of powders," said Dr Michael Pohl, vice president of Horiba Instruments.
"The combination of Clemex Technologies' expertise in quantitative microscopy with Horiba Instruments' marketing power and reputation in scientific instrumentation will undoubtedly give us the leadership in particle sizing instrumentation on the world market."
Invitrogen and Biosynth are to partner to facilitate the launch of a fluorescence-based culture medium for rapid detection of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in hospitals and medical settings.
The new BCM MRSA ELF culture media will provide test results in less than 12 hours - current culture methods require 48 hours to yield results.
"MRSA is an enormous public threat and can jeopardize the lives of tens of thousands of hospital patients, among others, each year," said Dr Urs Spitz, CEO of Biosynth.
"This deadly infection has been difficult and expensive to rapidly identify, with traditional culture methods taking two days to yield results. In addition, nucleic acid tests are too expensive to use for routine screening and may result in false positives. We're pleased to work with Invitrogen to develop rapid, low cost, reliable screening tools such as this media for use in clinical and environmental testing."
Jasco and Restek are to collaborate to deliver UHPLC (ultra high pressure liquid chromatography) solutions that will combine Restek;s small particle Pinnacle DB 1.9µm columns with Jasco's X-LC UHPLC system.
The NIH (US National Institute of Health) is to award grants totalling up to $8m per year between 2008 and 2010 to fund the development of biological assays for high-throughput screening applications.
The assays will be used as part of the Molecular Libraries Production Centers Network (MLPCN) programme to identify biologically active compounds in a large library of small molecule chemical structures.
Applications from both public and private entities will be accepted and applicants will be allowed to submit more than one application, provided they are scientifically distinct.
The grants will fund a maximum of two years work and will total up to $100,000 in the first year and $25,000 in the second. More details are available here .
Sloning Biotechnology has raised €4.7m in series E equity funding round, which will be used to finance the internationalisation of the company's Slonomics gene synthesis business and expand its Slonomax gene mutant library product family.
"Sloning clearly has the potential with its fully automatic gene synthesis platform to become the market leader in the increasingly attractive Synthetic Biology market," said Dr Harold Poth, of new investor LBBW Venture Capital and now a non-executive director of Sloning.
"With its unique Slonomax product, Sloning is very well positioned to become a leader in Synthetic Biology and the partner of choice for its customers from the White Biotech industry as well as delivering better enabling tools to protein therapeutic developers in order to make better drugs."
VWR International has acquired Netherlands-based laboratory supply distributor Omnilabo International BV. The company has 42 employees in the Benelux region and had been owned by private equity firm Nimbus until the sale, details of which were not disclosed.
"The acquisition of Omnilabo is a great fit with our Dutch and European distribution operations. Omnilabo is recognized for its considerable expertise in the clinical and laboratory consumables segments, among other areas, which complements our distribution coverage in the Netherlands, Belgium and throughout Europe," said Manuel Brocke-Benz, managing director of VWR's European Operations.
"We are very pleased and excited to expand our team with a group of very talented associates who we expect will make an immediate impact on future growth."
