Thermo Claims Award for European Laboratory Automation
Laboratorytalk (01/29/07)

Thermo Fisher Scientific's “outstanding” contribution to the 2006 European laboratory automation market has been recognized with a 2006 Frost and Sullivan award. The award cites the company's distinguished expertise in laboratory automation, their customer service excellence, and their ability to adapt to the changing needs of the drug discovery industry. The award also notes that Thermo Fisher Scientific is a full-spectrum solution provider. In particular, the award praised the company's Thermo Scientific Dimension4 platform for its scalability, multiple experiment handling, reliability, and configuration flexibility. The Ultra High Throughput Screening System and Polara software platform also are excellent laboratory tools.
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Cambridge Considers Nanotech Curbs
Boston Globe (01/26/07) Bray, Hiawatha

Cambridge, Mass., may become the second city in the United States to regulate the use of nanotechnology in research and manufacturing if the City Council passes a law that would require companies and labs using nanoparticles to notify the city government, provide information on the risks, and report on the handling, storage, and disposal of the materials. The city is currently studying a similar law enacted in Berkeley, Calif., for guidance. Although the city hopes to become an important player in the nanotechnology industry, officials are worried about potential health and environmental issues posed by the particles. Nanotechnology is not yet well understood, and further research needs to be conducted on its safety. Sam Lipson, the director of environmental health at the Cambridge Public Health Department, noted that Cambridge is now a leading biotech research center even though it was the first city in the country to regulate recombinant DNA research. However, industry officials are opposed to the law because they feel it is unnecessary and would create burdens for businesses.
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1.1 Million Pounds to Develop Robotic Stem Cell Research
Media-Newswire (01/25/07)

London consortium Plasticell is developing a robotic research aid for stem-cell research that will enable researchers to conduct thousands of experiments at once. Plasticell's Combinatorial Cell Culture robotic technology will enable researchers to track thousands of aspects of a stem-cell experiment to gauge how stem cells adjust, differentiate, and change, according to factors such as growth, nutrients, hormones, the physical environment, and other conditions and events. The robotic technology also allows experiments to run in a contaminant-free environment, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The consortium includes University College London and the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control. The consortium recently won a 1.1 million pound grant for the project from the U.K. Department of Trade and Industry.
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GenoLogics Targets Translational Medicine, Cancer Research and Other Areas With Partnership Strategy of End-to-End Solutions
LIMSource.com (01/20/07)

GenoLogics Life Sciences Software Inc. wants to forge partnerships with other firms to provide end-to-end lab and scientific data management tools for cancer research, biomarker discovery, and other proteomics and genomics applications. The company's lab automation platform merges numerous lab instruments, software programs, and analysis tools, among other technologies, to provide flexibility and scalability.
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Pumping High Technology Into the Low-Tech World of Dairies
Orange County Register (CA) (01/16/07)

Stewart, Colin Costa Mesa, Calif.-based Mission Controls Automation has helped local dairies automate and implement robotics and other computerized programs since its inception in 1997. The company turned to the dairy industry in large part because these low-tech businesses needed high-tech systems to minimize waste, boost profits, and comply with more stringent food-safety standards. Hank Van Nieuwenhuyzen of San Marcos-based Hollandia Dairy obtained its electronic pasteurization, homogenization, and cleaning system from Mission Controls. Van Nieuwenhuyzen says the system has simplified the cleaning process by keeping track of temperatures inside pipes, among other things. Mission Controls prides itself in handling customer calls any time of the day or night and has expanded to offer a College of Automation to help customers learn how to use the automated systems. The company is able to build and test systems off-site as well as show customers and state regulators what a system will look like and how it will perform via 3-D software tools.
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Rise of the Robots
Eureka Magazine (01/16/07) Shelley, Tom

ABB Robotics managing director Martin Walters believes general-purpose robots are a better choice than special purpose production machines for the manufacturing industry, as they can be reprogrammed if product designs change or the original product is no longer being made. Walters says robots can help manufacturers automate and successfully compete with foreign rivals. Even though special purpose machines are faster and more precise, ABB Robotics says robots are useful in lowering labor and capital costs, boosting quality and output rates, and minimizing repetitive tasks, among other things.
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Double-Deck Screener Meets Needs of Sanitary Applications
Product News Network (01/09/07)

Kason Corp.'s new Vibroscreen double-deck screener is compliant with U.S. regulatory standards and current good manufacturing practice principles with regards to food safety. The new device reduces the risk of contamination due to bacteria growth, while improving sanitizing efficiency, making it suitable for food and dairy applications. The screener is also appropriate for chemical applications where cross-contamination could occur, the company said. Furthermore, the screener can be used for scalping, de-dusting, and dewatering of contamination-sensitive materials, and it features gap-free screen frames, quick-release "U" clamps, and an air-lift apparatus to raise the frames. The company said the screens are mounted to support rings using epoxy and sealed using gasket material. The wire mesh screening material is offered in 304, 316, and "magnetic" 400-series stainless steel that, if broken, can be captured by a downstream magnet. Another feature of the screener is that it can be equipped with a clean-in-place spray wash system and designed to operate under a blanket of an inert gas.
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Nanotubes Functionalized Controllably
Chemical & Engineering News (01/08/07) Vol. 85 , No. 2 , P. 7 ; Jacoby, Mitch

A new technique allowing a molecule to be covalently attached to a carbon nanotube through an electrochemical method has been recently developed by a team of researchers led by Philip G. Collins, Brett R. Goldsmith, and John G. Coroneus at the University of California, Irvine, according to a report in a recent issue of Science. The procedure enables scientists to controllably functionalize nanotubes and probe chemical reactions as they occur without tricky molecular manipulations or advanced fabrication methods. The method also relies on electrical conductivity on the formation of defects on the initially pure nanotubes. The team's findings are unique because they were not based on indirect spectroscopy methods, and the method could be used to probe antibody-antigen interactions and other kinds of biomolecular reaction dynamics.
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It's the Luggage That Flies at Siemens' Mock Airport
Design News (01/08/2007) Ogando, Joseph

Several off-the-shelf automation technologies are demonstrated at Siemens mock airport, including prototype systems that allow passengers to check-in to their flights via mobile phone and finger and facial recognition technologies. The baggage handling system features over 2,000 meters of belt and tray conveyors, 600 drives, 1,000 sensors, and safety PLCs. RFID technology is also being tested for its use with baggage, allowing workers to scan bags to determine destinations or even change destination and flight status information without having to generate another barcode. Two drawbacks to the system have already been identified: its inability to work in the vicinity of metal and the inefficiency of having to scan each bag individually. However, Siemens has already tweaked RFID for use in metallic environments. The firm is still testing and tweaking the scanning technology needed for the baggage handling process to ensure it is small enough, can maximize conveyor speeds, and minimize spacing needed between bags.
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Despite Benefits, Gene Expression Faces Hurdles
Worldwide Biotech (01/07) Vol. 19 , No. 1 ,

Although gene expression can improve drug discovery and development, researchers have become overwhelmed by the swath of new data flooding their projects. Gene expression has been used in the fields of cancer, cardiovascular disease, immune and inflammatory disease, and central nervous system disorders, and it has highlighted early warning signs for various ailments and helped subclassify patients based upon changes in specific cells. However, without a technological infrastructure to weed through the available gene expression data and to simplify it for use by researchers, much of this data will remain confusing or unused. Data needs to be in formats that can be used across platforms over a wide range of laboratories, which generally use their own homebrews to replicate findings of other researchers as required for data verification. However, it is unclear whether the latest technology advancements to improve cross data comparisons are cost effective, particularly if technologies are aimed at routine procedures such as regent mixing and sample preparation. Dr. Amarpreet Dhiman reports that lab automation improvements can "help manufacturing processes to become more cost effective, thus aiding the consumers by lowering the price."
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Evolution-on-a-Chip
BioTechniques (01/07) Vol. 42 , No. 1 , P. 15 ; Blow, Nathan

Although traditional studies of evolutionary ecology using bacteria have been performed on bacteria grown in reactors called chemostats, these studies have been limiting for biologists because chemostats lack spatial structure and are not heterogeneous environments. However, Keymer et al. set out to fix this problem by fabricating microscale devices to study how bacteria adapt to different regions on a heterogeneous landscape. These fabricated landscapes are made up of a linear array of 85 square wells called microhabitat patches (MHPs) etched into silicon wafers and connected by channels that allow for the migration of bacteria between MHPs. In addition, nutrients were supplied to MHPs by 200-nm channels--channels that were too narrow for bacteria to pass through. Changing the number of etched nutrient channels going to specific MHPs allowed Keymer et al. to change the landscape conditions, making some MHPs more nutrient-rich than others. The researchers found that in a "flat" landscape, where all 85 MHPs had equal numbers of nutrient channels, the population size of local MHPs fluctuated while over the entire array a metapopulation emerged that demonstrated a more consistent growth rate. In experiments where different numbers of nutrient channels were connected to MHPs, bacteria were able to colonize the entire landscape--a process that could be divided into distinct epochs based on bacterial expansions over time into all areas of the landscape, even adaptation to the nutrient-limited MHPs.
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Robotics for the Small Scale
Scientist (01/01/2007) Vol. 21 , No. 1 , P. 64 ; Perkel, Jeffrey M.

Researchers considering a move to automation must first think about several factors before making the decision. They should consider whether the workload is large enough to warrant a switch, and, if not, look into sending jobs to a core facility or external service provider instead. Automation is useful in situations where reproducibility is an issue, as robotics can produce consistent results, and it may also be the right choice if mistakes are costly because robotics can substantially lower error rates, especially for more complicated procedures. If scaling up offers extra benefits, such as reducing the incidence of carpal tunnel syndrome among researchers or cutting expenses, automation can be a good investment. Also, some protocols do not work well with automation, such as protocols that are not standardized, while others may need an automated service that is not yet offered. Experts recommend a flexible and modular design so that the equipment does not become obsolete, and researchers should ensure they have the staff to run the equipment and that they can handle the large data volume produced by automation.
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Cross-Industry News ©Copyright 2007 INFORMATION, INC.

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