Product news in brief - week 51
news and releases from Agilent, Caliper, Grabner, Micronic,
Millipore, Torrey Pines and Warner.
Agilent has made its largest sale to date in India, selling more than 50 instruments to Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals. The sale comprises mainly 1200 series rapid resolution liquid chromatography (RRLS) systems, 7890a series gas chromatography (GC) systems and headspace samplers. "We were interested in the RRLC system when Agilent introduced it to us and subsequent demonstrations at our site proved its worthiness," said Dr P.Naidu, Orchid's vice president of QC and R&D. "Instrument reliability is a factor in this decision, along with our trust in Agilent based on our long association with district manager Mr. Gopala krishnan. He properly understood our requirements at each and every point, and this helped guide our decision." Caliper Life Sciences has introduced its new Zephyr SPE workstation, designed to automate solid-phase extraction (SPE) from samples in 96-well plates. SPE is used in various applications, such as isolating chemical analytes in biological samples, especially in high-throughput drugs of abuse screening, drug metabolism testing and forensic sample screening to increase efficiency and streamline the sample preparation process for mass spectrometer analysis. "As the mass spectrometry market continues to grow, increased demand has been placed on sample preparation tools. Researchers need reliable systems that improve throughput and streamline processes," said John Siira, market segment manager, Caliper Life Sciences. "The Zephyr SPE Workstation is Caliper's solution for higher throughput solid phase extraction." Grabner Instruments has launched the MINIVIS 445, an automatic, portable micro-viscometer that enables users to determine the viscosity of fuels, oils and petrochemical products, as well as other liquids such as milk or coffee cream. The system combines a falling ball viscometer with an advanced density meter, an automatic filling system and a very fast temperature control to enable the precise determination of dynamic and kinematic viscosity from 0.2 to 2000 mm2 per s over a wide temperature range. Micronic has launched its next generation of thermo plastic elastomer (TPE) caps that 'set a new benchmark for ease of use and long term sample storage integrity' in high-throughput (HT) screening systems. The USP Class VI certified coloured caps provide a tube seal that is easily pierced, highly hydrophobic, ensures better resealing properties after repeated piercing and suffers no discolouration even after long term exposure to oxygen. The caps are compatible with all Micronic standard or coded tubes and can be seamlessly integrated into automated drug discovery and HT screening systems. Millipore has coupled its tyrosine kinase offering with the BioForm Technology developed by P.A. Technologies to provide a better, more biologically relevant environment for cell signalling research and discovery efforts. The BioForm Technology enables the assembly of histidine-tagged proteins in an environment that mimics that created by a cell membrane and is adaptable to high throughput assay formats. The new system can be in many key stages of drug discovery research, including early stage drug screening, signal transduction and regulation of enzymatic activity as well as for the functional in vitro assembly of multiple protein targets. Torrey Pines Scientific has launched two new shaking, chilling and heating dry baths, the EcoTherm SC20XT and SC25XT. Both systems can control the temperature of samples from -20°C to 100°C to within 1°C and incorporate a variable speed orbital shaker to enable samples to be mixed and heated/cooled simultaneously. The SC20XT is a simple digital unit while the SC25XT is fully programmable having a 5-program memory and have a 30-day count down timer with alarm and Auto-off, data logger, and RS232 I/O port for data logging or controlling the units from a computer. Warner Instruments has introduced its new BLM-TC planar lipid bilayer thermocycler workstation that provides tight and reproducible temperature control between 5°C and 50°C to enable reproducible the measurement of single-channel events occurring in lipid bilayers. The Peltier-driven platform heats and cools at an average rate of 3° C/minute and can maintain a temperature to within 0.2° C of the set temperature.
