AN AREA of growing interest for water suppliers is the removal of pesticides and other potentially harmful micropollutants from water being treated, but this presents an unusual challenge in the laboratory. Water being delivered to the rapid column test is…
Month: March 2012
Compact microplate sealer handles all types and sizes
SEALING microplates is an important but routine laboratory task, usually done through the use of a microplate sealer. Many of these tools, however, are large and expensive, and require both electrical power and compressed air. Porvair Sciences’s new MiniSeal Plus…
Bromodomains and profiling kits to boost drug discovery
AMSBIO says that bromodomains – protein domains containing about 110 amino acid units – are emerging as a new class of target for drug discovery research, alongside Histone deacetylase (HDAC) and histone acetyltransferase (HAT). Bromodomains – BRDs – are found…
Sequencing the genome of antibiotic-resistant bacteria
A REPORT this week from Madrid recounts the novel use of the latest genomic sequencing system to unravel some of the secrets of new strains of the bacterium of Klebsiella pneunomiae. Researchers at the University Hospital La Paz Research Institute…
Next-generation mass spec made simpler
IN A BID to boost adoption of its next-generation mass spectrometry technology, AB Sciex has launched a bundled package of instruments plus software, training, standards, and validation services. The Accelerated Lab Integration Package is launched to coincide with the launch…
Transfection-free labelling for direct organelle visualisation
AN EASY method of labelling cellular structures without transfection agents is now available from Amsbio. The company says its lentiviral particles allow the direct visualisation of organelles and other internal cell structures, without manipulation. Real-time visualisation conventionally requires the use…
More efficient collagen coating of plates and flasks
A REGULAR but tedious task in many laboratories is the coating of disposable items of labware with extracellular matrix proteins such as collagen or fibronectin before performing cell culture operations. Now an application note from Integra Biosciences demonstrates how this…
Arbitrary polarisation control added to nanoscale IR spectroscope
IN THE quest to develop new high-performance polymers, one area of interest is to consider the orientation of the material at a molecular level. Speaking at Pittcon 2012 in Orlando, Florida, this week, Professor Bruce Chase of the University of…
Mass spectrometer is workhorse for routine operations
THE BEST-selling LC/MS/MS in history is how AB Sciex describes its API 4000, and so creating a replacement instrument is clearly not something to be undertaken lightly. The new 4500 series, unveiled this week at Pittcon 2012, is intended as…
Flow calorimetry from tiny samples for rapid enzyme screening
A LOW-COST flow calorimeter which characterises enzymes in just a few minutes, using samples measured in microlitres, is now available from TTP LabTech. ChipCal takes only two to ten minutes to process samples, making high-throughput screening of enzymes a viable…