A PODIUM presentation describing a ‘Human breathing Lung-on-a-chip for drug screening and nanotoxicity’ has been named as the winner of the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS)’s 2012 innovation award.
The presentation, by Dan Dongeun Huh of Harvard University, was made at SLAS’s first annual conference and exhibition this week in San Diego, USA, and earned Huh a cheque for US$10,000 presented at the event’s closing session.
The SLAS Innovation Award recognises up to ten finalists selected for their ‘extraordinary vision, originality, seminal technology, applications and strategies’. The judges evaluated each shortlisted presentation at the conference, making their final decision on the paper’s impact, originality, creativity, and the quality of the science and presentation.
“The presentations by all finalists were outstanding, but Dan’s demonstrated the most cutting-edge research and will most significantly impact our scientific community”, said chair of the judges panel Joerg Kutter.
SLAS also presented its new product awards to four companies exhibiting at the event. The winners are Dynamic Devices (for its 96VVP liquid handling robotic head), Fluidix (air film), Siloam Biosciences (OptiMax microplate), and Tecan (HP D300 digital dispenser).
The authors of scientific manuscripts published in the Journal of Laboratory Automation (Jala) and the Journal of Biomolecular Screening (JBS) were recognised. The Jala readers’ choice award went to A review of electronic laboratory notebooks by Michael Rubacha, Anil Rattan and Stephen Hosselet. The JBS readers’ choice award was given to Imaging and analysis of 3D tumour spheroids enriched for a cancer stem cell phenotype by Fredika Robertson, Marcia Ogasawara, Zaiming Ye, Khoi Chu, Ross Pickei, Bisrat Debeb, Wendy Woodward, Walter Hittelman, Massimo Cristofanilli, and Sanford Barsky.
Finally, student poster awards were made as follows: Kaston Leung, University of British Columbia (1st), Alexander Price, Scripps Research Institute (2nd), and Janna Hutz, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (3rd).
SLAS 2013 will be held in Florida, USA, 12-16 January 2013.