Breaking News on Laboratory Equipment

Imaging the 'spectroscopic signature of life'

Japanese researchers have used an advanced microspectroscopy technique to study the cell cycle of yeast without the need for fluorescent imaging agents that can potentially alter the cellular environment.

Applied Biosystems and Celera return first quarter profits

Applied Biosystems (ABI) saw 5 per cent revenue growth during its first quarter of fiscal 2008 as sister company Celera posted revenue growth of 57 per cent.

Industry news in brief - week 44

LabTechnologist.com brings you its periodic round up of industry news, with developments at Barloworld Scientific, Beckman Coulter, Harvard Biosciences, Inverness, Nonlinear Dynamics, Oxford Biomedica and ThalesNano.

Thermo Fisher Scientific reports record Q3 results

Thermo Fisher Scientific saw revenues for the third quarter of 2007 rise to $2.4bn (€1.7bn) with its Analytical Technologies division growing 12 per cent with quarterly sales of $1.04bn.

Big pharma reaches to Summit for zebrafish safety screening

Summit (formerly VASTox) has signed a $450,000 (€312,000) deal with one of the world's top five pharma firms to enable it to use Summit's zebrafish-platform in its drug safety programme.

Sulphur analysis speeds up protein quantification

Chinese researchers have developed a way to quickly quantify protein abundance using a mass spectrometry technique (MS) commonly used for elemental analysis.

Weekly Comment

Big pharma lends a helping hand

Despite often attracting a barrage of negative publicity, particularly in regard to a perception of putting profits before people, big pharma firms are still capable of showing their human side in times of crisis.

Sigma-Aldrich set to break $2bn yearly sales barrier

Sigma-Aldrich continued its strong year with both revenues and pre-tax profits showing strong double-digit growth in the third quarter predicting it will break the $2bn (€1.4bn) revenue mark this year.

BioSPM drives JPK into 'Technology Fast 50'

Scanning probe microscope (SPM) maker, JPK Instruments has been named as Germany's fastest growing nanotechnology company in accounting firm Deloitte's 'Technology Fast 50'.

Product news in brief - week 43

LabTechnologist.com brings you a round up of recent product news from Arrayjet, Aspectrics, BioTool, Cerno, IDBS, Olympus, Servocell, Tecan, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Viscotek and Warner Instruments.

BioSPM drives JPK into 'Technology Fast 50'

Scanning probe microscope (SPM) maker, JPK Instruments has been named as Germany's fastest growing nanotechnology company in accounting firm Deloitte's 'Technology Fast 50'.

Illumina's revenue soars as Affymetrix sues again

Illumina's third quarter revenues soared 82 per cent while Affymetrix looked to bolster its slice of the genetics market by filing more patent infringement claims against the young pretender.

Strong demand causes Waters Q3 to rise

Broad-based sales growth has helped push Waters third quarter revenues up 17 per cent to $353m (€248m) compared with the same period last year.

Microfluidic stimulation of cells in culture

US researchers have developed a fully automated microfluidic cell culture system that can control signalling agents in the extracellular media while maintaining cell viability for weeks.

Illumina halves the cost of miRNA expression profiling

Illumina has released a new microRNA (miRNA) assay for gene expression profiling at a cost that the company believes is less than half that of other commercially available systems.

Sigma-Aldrich helps siRNA N-TER cells

Sigma-Aldrich has continued its push into siRNA delivery with the release of its N-TER nanoparticle system for hard-to-transfect cell lines.

Veeco's revenues slide as restructuring hits home

Scanning probe microscope maker Veeco has seen its third quarter revenues drop 13 per cent to $97.7m (€68.7m) and plans to make 100 staff redundant as part of a restructuring drive.

Industry news in brief - week 43

LabTechnologist.com brings you its periodic round up of industry news, with developments at Bruker, Codon Devices, Invitrogen, Luminex and Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Promega speeds up DNA-protein interaction analysis

Promega has launched a new method of isolating the DNA sequences that bind to proteins that removes the need to generate specific antibodies used in traditional ChIP experiments.

Weekly Comment

Pfizer partners in shock after surprise Exubera exit

We've all cringed at stories of people dumping their partners via text message but in the world of business, Pfizer seems to have taken things to a new level when its Exubera partners were allegedly left to find out the product was being scrapped through a press release.

Study your rats so the results don't bite

New research has shown that even if laboratory rats are genetically identical they can still develop distinct metabolic profiles that could skew drug toxicity and metabolism studies.

Agilent and BioTrove push discovery efficiency

Agilent and BioTrove are collaborating to deliver ultra high-throughput sample preparation and mass spectrometry (MS) systems to speed the analysis of in vitro assays used in drug development.

Guarding against the misuse of synthetic genomics

A new report has outlined a series of recommendations for government policymakers to help mitigate the potential risks of the burgeoning synthetic genomics area.

Fingerprinting the structure of pharmaceuticals

A new solid-state proton NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) technique has been developed that can quickly determine polymorphism of active pharmaceuticals within tablet formulations.

Product news in brief - week 42

LabTechnologist.com brings you its periodic update of recent product releases, with additions from Activotec, Applied Biosystems / MDS Sciex, FEI, Invitrogen, Mettler Toledo and Torrey Pines.

Agilent and BioTrove push discovery efficiency

Agilent and BioTrove are collaborating to deliver ultra high-throughput sample preparation and mass spectrometry (MS) systems to speed the analysis of in vitro assays used in drug development.

Foot-tapping boosts laboratory efficiency

A new foot-controlled PC mouse aims to increase researchers' efficiency by removing the need for repetitive glove removal and hand washing before using laboratory computers.

Boehringer hopes cash injection will turbocharge diabetes and obesity programme

Boehringer Ingelheim has witnessed Vitae Pharmaceuticals attack the same diabetes and obesity target as itself, only faster, and has decided to splash out for a piece of the action.

Wyeth ups the ante with new proteomics method

Researchers from Wyeth Research's Biological Technologies division have described how the use of a titania-affinity enrichment step can aid in the discovery of post-translational protein modifications.

Industry news in brief - week 42

LabTechnologist.com brings you its periodic round up of industry news, with developments at Affymetrix Labs, AlphaSniffer, Corning, DNAPrint Genomics, Illumina and Rules-Based Medicine.

The death of PCR for sequencing amplification?

Two new techniques have been developed that could signal the end of PCR (polymerase chain reaction) amplification for sequencing applications and dramatically increase the efficiency of sample preparation.

Ventana to help develop pathway for companion diagnostics

The Critical Path Institute (C-Path) and diagnostics expert Ventana Medical Systems are collaborating to develop a standard submission route for targeted therapies and companion diagnostics.

Product news in brief - week 41

LabTechnologist.com brings you a round up of product news, with developments at Beckman Coulter, Bruker, GE Healthcare, Invitrogen, PerkinElmer, Promega, Sigma-Aldrich, ThalesNano and Thar Instruments.

It's a NanoDrop for Thermo Fisher Scientific

Thermo Fisher Scientific has acquired micro-volume UV-Vis (ultra violet visible) instrument manufacturer NanoDrop Technologies for an undisclosed amount.

Lab-on-a-chip enables cell-free protein synthesis

Researchers have developed a new microfluidic device that enables high-throughput (HT), cell-free protein synthesis for genomic and proteomic functional analysis.

Ertl wins Nobel Prize for Chemistry

Professor Gerhard Ertl of the Max-Planck Society in Berlin, Germany, has won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry on his 71st birthday for his 'groundbreaking studies in surface chemistry'.

RBM buys EDI, simplifies immune response testing

Biomarker testing service provider Rules-Based Medicine (RBM) has bought EDI to gain access to its 3D organ-like and ex vivo cell culture test systems to aid its preclinical and clinical research programmes.

German laboratory equipment market

Sales of laboratory products in Germany have recovered from a 'stagnant period' between 2001 and 2004 to reach a record €5.3bn in 2006.

Industry news in brief - week 41

LabTechnolgist.com brings you a round up of recent industry news, including developments at Asuragen, bioMerieux, Caliper, Dolomite, IDBS, Perlegen, Phytronix, Porvair, Sigma-Aldrich and Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Codon Devices expands gene scaffolding reach

Constructive Biology expert, Codon Devices, has opened a European subsidiary in the UK to support the rapid growth of the advanced gene synthesis and protein engineering markets.

Proteomics shows 3D cell cultures are better than 2D

German researchers have shown 3D cell structures better resemble tumour phenotypes than traditional cultures, suggesting they will make better models for testing new anticancer agents.

UK innovation to get billion pound boost

The UK government has set-aside £1bn (€1.45bn) to give early-stage companies better support after a review of the UK's science and innovation policies by Lord Sainsbury of Turville.

Product news in brief - week 40

LabTechnologist.com brings you its periodic round up of product news, with releases from Harvard Apparatus, Invitrogen, Mettler Toledo, Millipore, Syrris, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Velocity 11 and WLD-TEC.

Horiba illuminates protein interactions

Horiba Jobin Yvon's protein interaction analyser, which can analyse up to 400 biomolecular interactions in 10 minutes, made its UK debut at the L.A.B. show on Tuesday.

Big pharma enters stem cell domain to address safety, attrition

Three of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies have signed a landmark deal with the UK government that will see them use stem cell technology to road-test the safety of new compounds.

ABI and Olink to push protein detection sensitivity

Applied Biosystems (ABI) has exclusively licensed Olink Bioscience's proximity ligation assay (PLA) technology that enables the correlation of gene and protein expression data.

Industry news in brief - week 40

LabTechnologist.com brings you a round up of recent industry news, with developments at Affymetrix, Celera, deltaDOT, Eksigent, Farfield, Nanogen and Olympus UK.

'In-house' outsourcing firm in line for EU accolade

Synergy has been short-listed in three categories for the upcoming European Outsourcing Awards - an accolade that could give a boost to its innovative "in house" outsourcing model.

Novartis weighs up label-free HTS for drug discovery

Researchers from Novartis have published results using high-throughput screening (HTS) mass spectrometry (MS) techniques for the identification of enzyme inhibitors.