Inside Instrumentation

Dionex acquires LC media technology

Dionex has purchased the swift monolithic liquid chromatography (LC) media technology and products business of Teledyne Isco. Monolithic separation columns consist of continuous, porous polymeric structures instead of microparticles. The acquisition adds to Dionex' existing offerings in polymer-bead-based separation media for ion chromatography and high-performance LC separations and will allow Dionex to enter new application areas in nano-, capillary-, analytical-, and preparative-flow formats. The move fits with the current trend "toward smaller formats, system integration, and miniaturization," says Lukas Braunschweiler, Dionex president and CEO.

Bruker expands its X-ray business

Bruker AXS has introduced a completely digital imaging detector, called the AXIOM 200, for macromolecular X-ray crystallography. According to the company, the new detector's sensitivity allows for the detection of signals that would otherwise be buried in the noise of older analog detectors. The new detector also has no readout dead time, allowing for faster, nearly continuous scans with less mechanical jitter. To support its instrumentation, the company is acquiring SOCABIM SAS, a developer of X-ray analysis software. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2006. Meanwhile, Bruker AXS has debuted its own Autostructure software suite for fully automatic determination of 3-D crystal structures from X-ray data. Although designed primarily for use in chemical crystallography, the software can also handle peptide and small-protein structures of moderate resolution.

Thermo launches several instruments

Thermo Electron has announced new instruments for the mass spectrometry, proteomics, and compound analysis markets. In the MS area, it's now offering the Finnigan LXQ linear ion trap mass spectrometer. The LXQ provides higher speed and sensitivity than 3-D ion traps and is a lower cost option for high-throughput drug discovery and proteomics applications. Thermo has also acquired Ionalytics, a company spun out of the National Research Council Canada in 2001 that has developed a dynamic ion-filtering device for MS. For compound analysis, Thermo has introduced a high-resolution, double-focusing, magnetic-sector gas chromatography/MS system called DFS. It succeeds the Finnigan MAT 95 XP GC/MS system for trace compound analysis of environmental and other samples. For elemental analysis, Thermo has put its HiPerTOC and ECS analyzers (shown) on the same software platform to enable combined analyses for total organic carbon (TOC) and total organic halogens (TOX).

Companies open technical centers

EMD Chemicals, part of Merck KGaA in North America, has opened a new chromatography technical center in Gibbstown, N.J. The center houses chromatography columns ranging from developmental to 100-L production scale for customer training. It complements EMD's existing chromatography technical center in Darmstadt, Germany. Separately, Horiba Jobin Yvon has opened a new applications facility in Longjumeau, France. The facility includes a chemical laboratory along with demonstration, training, and applications areas for X-ray fluorescence, inductively coupled plasma atomic emission, and optical emission spectrometers, as well as sulfur-in-oil, elemental, and particle-size analyzers.

Agilent, Picometrics in electrophoresis deal

Agilent Technologies and Picometrics, of Ramonville, France, will comarket Picometrics' laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) detectors in combination with Agilent's capillary electrophoresis (CE) systems. Capillary LIF coupled to CE or liquid chromatography systems allows researchers to detect very low concentrations of molecules in very small biological samples. "Picometrics' LIF detectors will bring the benefits of fluorescence detection, such as sensitivity and selectivity, to Agilent CE users," says Tony Owen, Agilent marketing manager for liquid-phase-analysis products.

COMBIMATRIX DEVELOPS ARRAY SYNTHESIZERS

Acacia Research's CombiMatrix group has launched its CustomArray DNA Synthesizer, which lets researchers build customized commercial-grade microarrays in their own facilities. The system consists of a synthesizer that uses semiconductor-based arrays (approximately 1 cm²) integrated onto a standard 1- x 3-inch slide format. CombiMatrix is collaborating with the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University to develop a synthesizer that can create polypeptide arrays on CustomArrays. Under the agreement, the institute's Center for BioOptical Nanotechnology will purchase CombiMatrix equipment and fund development. The parties will share any revenue from commercializing the peptide array synthesizer and related products. Arizona Technology Enterprises, the technology commercialization company for ASU and the Biodesign Institute, facilitated the deal.

Inside Instrumentation is written by Celia M. Henry and Ann M. Thayer. Contact them via e-mail to instrumentation@acs.org.