Researchers Detect Variations in DNA That Underlie Seven Common Diseases
New York Times (06/07/07) Wade, Nicholas

British scientists have learned that biological pathways facilitated by certain DNA variations underlie seven common diseases: Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, bipolar disorder, hypertension, coronary artery disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and Crohn's disease. Analysis of these pathways will hopefully lead to innovative pharmaceuticals and treatments. It was promised that the $3 billion human genome project would reveal the genetic mechanisms behind common ailments, but this ability has only recently taken off with the creation of devices that can decipher a DNA sequence at up to 500,000 points across an individual's genome in a single operation.
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Microwaves Beam Into Biosciences
Chemical & Engineering News (05/21/07) Vol. 85 , No. 21 , P. 32 ; Yarnell, Amanda

In the fields of biology and biochemistry, microwave energy is increasingly being used to improve a variety of processes. By employing microwave heating in automated peptide synthesis, scientists can significantly reduce synthesis times and increase product yields. Benjamin G. Davis of the University of Oxford notes that microwaves enable the creation of peptides that could not be made with other instruments; Davis' team has used microwaves to create immunoglobins that have promise as therapeutics. Hindering undesired aggregation is another method by which microwave energy enhances peptide yields. In addition, microwave energy can link pre-assembled peptides together and can assist in site-specific protein modification, which may one day be applied to the automated synthesis of intricate sugar chains. In the proteomics field, microwave energy helps with characterizing proteins, including difficult-to-assess monoclonal antibody-based drugs. Microwaves are already considered valuable in synthetic organic chemistry labs, especially for reactions involving metal catalysts or strongly polar reagents.
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Scientists Create 'Optical Tweezers'
United Press International (05/31/07)

Scientists from Barcelona's Institute of Photonic Sciences have created a technique for capturing suspended microparticles with gold microdots, visible with a laser. The method is an innovation to lab-on-a-chip microfluidic systems, particularly for analyzing living cells, and is less cumbersome than using optical tweezers. The technique involves placing a liquid droplet filled with microparticles on a slide, and then the array of microdots is used to trap the particles. The researchers' findings are available online in the journal Nature Physics.
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Advancing Drug Discovery
R&D Magazine (05/25/07) Walz, Martha

The pharmaceutical industry is utilizing new instruments in its quest to improve efficiency and output during drug discovery and development. California-based Applied Biosystems and SCIEX are designing FlashQuant, a mass spectroscopy platform intended to speed up drug compound screening by linking MALDI technology with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry. In laboratory tests, the new platform has produced a 25-fold increase in speed for small molecule quantitation, compared to the fastest spectrometers on the market. The FlashQuant platform will be applied to the profiling of early absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion, which is a critical step in candidate compound screening. PerkinElmer has developed a novel 1536 Head LumiLux Cellular Screening Platform for high-throughput screening and ultra high-throughput screening kinetic flash and glow luminescent cellular assays. The LumiLux Cellular Screening Platform uses advanced liquid handling automation to facilitate simultaneous 1536 “inject and read” flash luminescence assays, generating more than 100,000 data points daily for drug target screenings. Thermo Fisher Scientific unveiled its newest LC-MS/MS quantitation solutions, which integrate the Thermo Scientific TLX high-speed liquid chromatography (LC) system with TurboFlow technology, the TSQ Quantum series triple quadrupole mass spectrometers, high-field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry technology, the Accela high-speed chromatography system, and Watson LIMS. The LC-MS/MS solutions are intended to reduce sample preparation time, speed up complex sample analysis, enhance assay sensitivity, increase drug discovery assays' throughput, and improve regulatory data submission.
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Robots Advance, Consumers Stall
Christian Science Monitor (05/31/07) P. 13 ; Peter, Tom A.

Industry observers say the average American household will include one or two simple robots within the next 10 years, but first Americans will need to overcome their preconceived prejudices against robots, which include skepticism, unrealistic expectations, and the fear that robots are dangerous. Americans have little problem with their unknown interactions with less obvious robots and robotic elements incorporated into larger products, such as cruise control, but the idea of autonomous robots in the house is still viewed cautiously by the American consumer. For example, for the same cost as a regular vacuum, a consumer can purchase the Roomba robot, which automatically vacuums and even knows when to charge itself, but after four years on the market only 1 percent to 2 percent of American households felt compelled or comfortable enough to use a robot for a task as menial as vacuuming. The problem in many cases is that people question if the Roomba really works or is just an elaborate gimmick. Another problem is that Americans have an underlying cultural fear of robots due to movies involving robots that overthrow humans or hunt them down. As with many technological changes, a generational shift may be needed to bring mainstream acceptance of robots into American culture. Children are frequently the first to test new robotic innovations. Aside for acclimating the next generation to the presence of robots, robotic toys can also provide a realistic expectation of what robots can do. Sarjoun Skaff, cofounder of robotic toy company Bossa Nova Concepts, says that unrealistic expectation create distrust for machines like Roomba. “So far, our perception has been shaped by science-fiction movies,” Skaff says. “And the public's expectation of what the robots can and should do far exceeds the technical ability of today's robots.” Even when robotics manage to overcome the public's general distrust, robots will still need to be made simple enough so that even the least technologically inclined consumers can use robot products with ease.
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China Launches 5-Year Plan for Food, Drug Safety
Reuters (06/06/07)

China has announced the beginning of a five-year campaign to improve food and pharmaceutical drug safety in China that will especially feature improved export controls. China's government is acting to stem the outpouring of global criticism about faulty and fraudulent Chinese pharmaceutical and food products. The announcement promises that “illegal activities behind production and sale of fake and shoddy foods and pharmaceuticals will be effectively contained.”
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Linear Products on the Move
Design News (05/14/2007) P. 56 ; Ogando, Joseph

Linear motion components are becoming smaller in size, less expensive, and better in performance—just the type of improvements that engineers would like to see. Demand for power density is driving the “downsizing” of linear motion systems, explains Jim Marek of Danaher Motion's Thomson unit. There is also a demand for smaller-sized medical equipment that remains accurate and repeatable. “We are continuing to develop smaller and smaller precision products for medical and lab automation systems,” explains Kevin Gingerich, the marketing director for Bosch Rexroth's linear motion products. One good example of a “smaller, better, cheaper” linear motion product is Danaher Motion's MicroStage MS46 Positioning Slides, which allows users to configure slide lengths with ease. The MS46 also offers three linear actuation methods: pre-loaded ballscrew, lead screw, and belt-drive. Two other examples, both from Bosch Rexroth, include the High-precision Ball Rail System and the PSK Precision Modules.
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Advances in Microarray Technology
DrugResearcher.com (05/24/07) Wilkinson, Matt

The Advances in Microarray Technology conference and Lab-on-a-Chip World Congress were held in Edinburgh in mid-May, with organizers noting that Select Biosciences reported a record 425 attendees. Bioperspectives representative Steven Bodovitz estimates that the microarray market is currently worth about $800 million and growing. Bodovitz notes that microarrays have evolved to the point where mature applications like diagnostics have begun to emerge—aCGH, ChIP on chip, SNP, and miRNA, for example. Firms like Siemens, CombiMatrix, and Philips have become increasingly interested in diagnostics and are attempting to become more prominent in the sector, says Select Biosciences managing director Ken Browne, noting that many companies are eyeing microarrays as a platform for molecular diagnostics.
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Will Robots Become as Common as PCs?
Boston Globe (05/16/07) Bray, Hiawatha

The firms appearing at the RoboBusiness 2007 trade show in Boston are constructing a variety of innovative inventions, including parachutes operated by robots to allow military planes to provide supplies to soldiers with precise accuracy, and robotic physicians to help specialists treat patients who are thousands of miles away. While the majority of the products on display are prototypes, Frost & Sullivan robotics industry analyst Sath Rao notes the robot industry is similar to the personal computer sector of 30 years ago, and believes it will be between 10 and 15 years before robots become a regular fixture in the marketplace. One prototype—the Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot (BEAR)—is a rescue apparatus shaped like a person being built at the Vecna Technologies Inc. research lab in Cambridge, Mass. BEAR is meant to be used in battle to get wounded troops off the field. The prototype has rubber tires and trends, with a torso that looks like a human. The device has video cameras in both eyes to enable the human operator to handle the machine, and its arms can raise 350 pounds. Although military robots comprise the bulk of the show's offerings, Santa Barbara, Calif.'s InTouch Technologies Inc.is displaying devices that are treating patients ill at several American hospitals. The company has sold 20 of its RP-7 “telemedicine” robots, gadgets that allow a physician to treat patients from miles away by permitting them to communicate online.
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Further Integration of Microfluidics and Mass Spectrometry
Chemistry World (05/07) Gross, Michael

At the University of Regensburg, Detlev Belder and colleagues have designed a glass microchip that combines electrophoretic separation methods with the electrospray procedure. On the glass chip, the electrophoresis channels progress directly to the integrated nanospray nozzle. For electrophoresis and for many chemical applications, glass chips are more a better fit than silicon, according to Belder. Belder's group tested the device by running an on-chip enzymatic digestion of a protein, electrophoretic separation of the peptide fragments, and classification via mass spectrometry. The researchers were able to verify the identity of the bovine serum albumin protein. While some experts feel the new device is unnecessary in light of already existing solutions, other experts describe the new tool as significant step forward. Belder predicts that “In the near future, nanospray chips could be implemented as mass-spectrometric couplers of complex lab-on-a-chip systems.”
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New Xen Opens Up a Little More
InternetNews.com (05/22/07) Kerner, Sean Michael

The Xen 3.1 hypervisor released by the Xen open source project includes new API support, enhanced 64-bit paravirtualization, and on-the-fly virtual machine relocation capability. “For server workloads, Xen's core hypervisor functionality now meets or beats VMware ESX in pretty much all areas, both features and performance,” boasted Xen project leader and XenSource founder Ian Pratt. With Xen 3.1's Live Relocation feature, an operating virtual machine can be transferred between physical servers without a significant disruption of the operating system and the applications being executed. “It basically works by synchronizing the memory image of the running virtual machine between the source and destination hosts, and then migrating the final CPU state etc,” explained Pratt. XenSource manages the Xen project, readying products for release under the XenEnterprise brand. Pratt noted that the testing and certification process for “hardening” Xen open source releases so that their quality is suitable for XenEnterprise typically lasts just a few months, given XenSource's heavy investment in verification lab automation.
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First Automated Pleuripotent hES Cell Culture
Laboratorytalk (05/04/07)

ITI Life Sciences is partnering with Swedish stem cell company Cellartis to use a Compact Select automated cell structure system for creating a consistent bioprocess for manufacturing high-quality undifferentiated human embryonic stem (hES) cells. The effort is part of a 9.5 million pound ITI Life Sciences stem cell research program that will be launched at Cellartis' Dundee, Scotland, facility. The program will examine the automation of Cellartis's pleuripotent hES cell scale. “We want to manufacture hES cells on a commercial scale because there is a huge, untapped market for robust hES cells for use in drug screening,” explains Fergus McKenzie, program manager at ITI Life Sciences.
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New Research Centre Where Robots Will Rule
Press Association (UK) (05/09/07) Graham, Ian

The University of Ulster recently opened the new Intelligent Systems Research Centre at its Magee campus in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. The center is intended to become a leading force in research in the fields of robotics, artificial intelligence, and intelligent systems. The university has launched an international search to attract the world's leading talent in the fields to Northern Ireland. The center's director, professor Martin McGinnity, said part of the research will focus on developing robotic systems that are more intelligent and have a better understanding of their surroundings and what is happening around them. “Sophisticated robots are currently available but lack the ability to adapt to changing circumstances or interact intelligently with humans,” McGinnity said. “We will be focusing not simply on robot-human interaction, but robot-robot co-operation and collaboration as well.” Bio-inspired computational systems, designed to create more intelligent machines, will also be a focus of the center, along with brain-computer interfacing for the health care sector to help the disabled. McGinnity said work is already underway examining how EEG signals in the brain can be interpreted by computers and used to manipulate everyday objects, creating new communication channels for the disabled. Finally, the center will work on ambient intelligence, extracting intelligence from wireless sensors, a technology that could be used to aid the increasingly large elderly population in western Europe.
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Ethanol Research Ongoing at Ag Lab
Peoria Journal Star (IL) (05/08/07) Tarter, Steve

Researchers at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research, also known as the Peoria Ag Lab, are using a one-armed robot to help them search for a cost-effective way to roduce ethanol from cellulose. Scientists at the lab can currently make cellulosic ethanol, but the cost is prohibitive, explains Mike Cotta, research leader of the lab's fermentation/biotech unit. The one-armed robot is capable of processing gene sequences at a speed hundreds of times faster than the most efficient lab technician, says the robot's creator, molecular biologist Steve Hughes. “It's continuous lab automation as we look for very specialized enzymes,” he explains. The Peoria Ag Lab typically receives an injection of federal funding whenever the concept of renewable fuels heats up, Cotta says, noting that the new Farm Bill in Congress allocates $500 million over six years for biofuel research. The lab has an annual budget of $31 million, of which $6 million goes toward ethanol research.
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Are You in Need of the Astech Challenge?
DrugResearcher.com (05/03/07) Wilkinson, Matt

Astech Projects, a U.K.-based company with 10 years of experience in customized automation projects, is challenging itself by asking pharmaceutical companies for complex automation problems to solve. While laboratories often experience bottlenecks due to systems that automate only one part of the process, Astech specializes in start-to-finish automation. The company also strives to interweave “off-the-shelf” solutions when automating whole reaction and analysis procedures, and has had significant success in designing automated systems for the development and quality control of inhalation devices.
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PolyScan: an Automatic Indel and SNP Detection Approach to the Analysis of Human Resequencing Data
Genome Research (05/07) Vol. 17 , No. 5 , P. 659 ; Chen, Ken ; McLellan, Michael D. ; Ding, Li

Researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine are using PolyScan, an algorithm and software system developed to detect de novo heterozygous indels and identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the milieu of high-throughput medical resequencing. PolyScan detected approximately 90 percent of the 151 consensus indel sites during tests on a human diploid PCR-based sequence data set encompassing 90,270 traces from 13 genes. PolyScan also discovered about 84 percent of the 1,546 heterozygous indels previously found by manual examination. When tested on tumor-derived data, PolyScan outperformed other mutation detection software in finding high-quality, low-level mutations. As indels—small insertions and deletions—and SNPs are prevalent genetic variants connected to a broad range of human diseases, PolyScan may play a valuable role in the post human genome project age.
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