Breaking News on Laboratory Equipment

Product news in brief

LabTechnologist.com brings you its weekly round-up of new product releases, with news from ABB, FEI, Integra, Porvair, Radleys and Tecan.

Waters filters out the matrix

Waters has combined its award winning Synapt MS with a MALDI ionisation source to broaden the number of applications the instrument can be used in - including MALDI imaging.

'Cryogel' bioreactor pumps out antibodies continuously

Researchers have developed a new 'supermacroporous cryogel' bioreactor for the long term continuous production of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) that outperforms T-flask batch cultivators.

Prototype biosensor screens drugs without killing cells

The worlds of biochemistry and electronics have collided after scientists successfully developed a biosensor that can measure a drug's effectiveness without killing the cells it is trying to analyse.

CellASIC's microfluidic tumour model

US microfluidics company CellASIC has developed a device that enables the effects of anticancer drugs to be studied in an environment that mimics a real cancerous growth.

FRAME aims for animal alternatives

Research into new tools that will remove the need to use animals in medical research has received a £240,000 (€356,000) boost at the University of Nottingham.

Roche 'takes off its gloves' in fight to acquire Ventana

Pharma giant Roche has gone public in its fight to acquire tissue-analysis instrument and reagent expert Ventana Medical Systems for $3bn (€2.2bn).

Industry news in brief

LabTechnologist.com brings you its periodic round up of industry news with developments at Applied Biosystems, MFIC, Oxford Gene Technology, PerkinElmer and Syagen.

Virtual cell could 'revolutionise' TB drugs

A virtual version of the microbe that causes tuberculosis could help 'revolutionise' TB treatment by unlocking the key to how a few cells remain resistant to drugs.

New miRNA tumour supressors identified

Researchers have discovered three potential microRNA (miRNA) tumour suppressor genes using real-time PCR (polymerase chain reaction) techniques.

Product news in brief

LabTechnologist.com brings you its weekly round of new product releases with new offerings from Asynt, Genevac, Huber, Jasco, Micronic, Olympus, Velocity11 and Viscotek.

Faster gene mutations hold key to drug development

Scientists have developed a faster means of searching non-gene DNA for mutations that cause disease, paving the way for faster and cheaper drug development.

Thermo Fisher Scientific launches RNAi services laboratory

Thermo Fisher Scientific has opened a new RNAi Discovery and Therapeutics Services Laboratory to help pharmaceutical companies in their quest for new drugs.

Fluidigm miniaturises the time and cost of PCR genotyping

US-microfluidics expert Fluidigm has launched a new dynamic array for its BioMark instrument that increases the efficiency of PCR (polymerase chain reaction) genotyping while reducing the amount of costly equipment and reagents needed.

Farfield lights up membrane protein analysis

Farfield Scientific has teamed up with Monash University, Australia to create biosensor chips that will enable researchers to unravel how membrane proteins function and interact with drug molecules.

Roche snaps up NimbleGen

Roche Diagnostics has strengthened its position in the genomics field with the acquisition of DNA microarray expert NimbleGen in a deal worth $272.5m (€203m).

Biobanking on the future

With the world's largest medical study rolling out across the UK, LabTechnologist.com explores the problems of biobanking with Dutch biosample storage experts, Micronic.

Industry news in brief

LabTechnologist.com brings you its periodic round up of industry news with developments at Agilent, Biotage, Chenomx, Oxford Gene Technology, Phenomenex and Sigma-Aldrich.

The sound of separation?

Swedish researchers have developed a method of separating a continuous flow of (bio)particles based on their size and density using acoustic forces.

Three-pronged approach identifies new cancer target

US researchers have developed a three part screening process to find new cancer genes and used it to identify a new gene associated with about a third of all breast cancers.

Product news in brief

LabTechnologist.com brings you a round up of some of the latest product releases with new offerings from Agilent, Applied Biosystems, ESA Biosciences, Illumina, Mettler-Toledo and Syrris.

ThalesNano makes hydrogenation reactions 'academic'

ThalesNano Nanotechnology has launched a new version of its H-Cube flow reactor for use in higher education laboratories - the H-Cube Tutor.

Company Profile: Agilent Technologies

LabTechnologist.com brings you an exclusive interview with Chris van Ingen - the president of Agilent's Life Science and Chemical Analysis (LSCA) division.

Weekly comment

Corrupt Chinese drug official appeals death penalty

The former director of the country's State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) has lodged an appeal against the death penalty slapped on him after a corruption conviction.

Melting DNA in microfluidic devices

German researchers have developed a microfluidic device that greatly increases the efficiency of measuring the melting temperature of DNA double strands.

Identifying the connections between cancer pathways

Researchers have used a protein lysate array to profile and classify multiple components of aberrant cell signalling pathways in 90 cancer cell lines.

SWOrRD to cut through the bacterial identification problem?

US researchers have developed a new technique that allows the identification of bacteria as well as differentiating between genetically similar species.

TTP celebrates 20th Anniversary

UK technology expert The Technology Partnership (TTP) celebrates its 20th birthday this year with its focus on innovation stronger than ever.

Industry news in brief

LabTechnologist.com brings you its periodic round up of industry news from Biomatrica, Cogenics, Correlogic, Digilab, MDS Nordion, SuperArray and Sigma-Aldrich.

Hunting for drug candidates on Kinase SARfari

BioFocus DPI has released a new informatics system that can combine chemical and biological data from various sources to optimise protein kinase inhibitor candidate selection.

Agilent reduces the noise in proteomics experiments

Agilent has launched a new tool that removes the 14 most abundant proteins found in blood plasma and serum to speed up the discovery and identification of low-abundance proteins and biomarkers.

Product news in brief

LabTechnologist.com brings you a round up of some of the latest product releases with new offerings from Activiotec, Cyprotex, Bruker, Olympus, PerkinElmer and Varian.

The 'biogeneric' analysis problem

The apparent inability of current analytical techniques to fully characterise complex biological drugs still stands in the way of easy approval pathways for 'biogenerics' or copies of off-patent brand name biologics.

ABI launch SOLiD gene sequencer

Applied Biosystems (ABI) has started its early access program for its next-generation DNA sequencing system, SOLiD, as well as starting to take customer orders.

IDBS launch latest electronic lab notebook

IDBS look to speed up laboratory research by enabling more efficient knowledge transfer with its latest electronic lab notebook (ELN) suite, E-WorkBook 7.0.

Nanodots take the matrix out of MALDI-MS

Japanese researchers have developed a way to increase protein sequence coverage by removing the need for organic matrices that can mask low weight analytes during MALDI-MS experiments.

Industry news in brief

LabTechnologist.com brings you its periodic round up of industry news, with Qiagen agreeing to buy Digene, Roche Diagnostics settling a tax evasion investigation and agreements between Bio-Rad and Beckman Coulter, Waters and Rosetta Biosoftware, and Isogenica and Wyeth.

deltaDOT lets fly with new drug discovery tool

DeltaDOT has been given a government grant to commercially develop a new tool to allow researchers to reduce dramatically the time it takes to weed out unsuitable drug candidates.

Thermo launches new proteomics MS

Thermo Fisher Scientific has introduced a range of powerful new mass spectroscopy products at the 55th ASMS Conference on Mass Spectrometry currently being held in Indianapolis, US.

'Free drugs', but only if they don't work, proposes drug firm

In a groundbreaking decision, Janssen-Cilag has offered to give the UK government their money back if its expensive new bone cancer treatment does not work on patients.

High throughput screening of Alzheimer's inhibitors

Japanese researchers have developed a high throughput method for screening the activity of beta-amyloid protein aggregation inhibitors that should speed up the discovery of new Alzheimer's therapies.

Improved image analysis in proteomics research

Analysing the images from protein separation experiments, such as 2D gel electrophoresis (2DGE), is not only time consuming but can often miss 'hits' and give false positives. But it doesn't have to be that way, according to Swedish company Ludesi.