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Environment

Inside Instrumentation

Technology and Business news for the laboratory world

by Inside Instrumentation is written by Celia H. Arnaud and Ann M. Thayer
April 30, 2007 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 85, Issue 18

Beckman Coulter helps with AIDS test

As part of a project with Imperial College London's CD4 Initiative, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Beckman Coulter will develop quality assurance and quality control materials to verify the accuracy of an HIV/AIDS test designed for use in remote settings with limited resources. The test will use finger pricks and visual detection to measure CD4 T cells. "Our challenge with this project is to create the control products that will ensure that the planned HIV/AIDS tests being developed are accurate in the environmental conditions found in areas like sub-Saharan Africa," says Wade Bolton, vice president of Beckman Coulter's Custom BioPharma Solutions & Services.

Firms Open Facilities in Asia

(1) Applied Biosystems has opened its Asia-Pacific application support center in Shanghai. The facility houses a range of life sciences instrumentation and training experts in five demonstration labs. In related news, Agilent Technologies has officially opened its China headquarters campus in Beijing Wang Jing Science Park. Along with R&D, sales, and technical support operations, the site houses a new Open Lab & Solution Center for electronic measurement and a Life Sciences & Chemical Analysis Center of Excellence. Separately, executives from Bio-Rad Laboratories, joined by a member of the Singapore Economic Development Board, opened the company's first manufacturing plant in the region in Kaki Bukit View. Bio-Rad will use it to build life sciences instrumentation.

Near-IR technology for paper . . .

Analytical Spectral Devices and Paprican, the Pulp & Paper Research Industry of Canada, have entered an agreement to develop the industry's first application of near-infrared technology, which will be used to measure pulp brightness and lignin content. "Our goal is to simplify an expensive, labor-intensive chemical testing procedure," says Chris Kanters, director of contracts, patents, and licensing at Paprican. "The benefit of this technology is improved productivity, speed of measurement, and accuracy, giving our member manufacturing companies a competitive edge in today's expanding global market."

... and for biodiesel

Encoded photometric near-infrared spectroscopy can be used for quick and accurate simultaneous measurements of biodiesel blends and contaminants in synthetic biodiesel samples, according to two new application notes from Aspectrics. Biodiesel is a fuel made from vegetable oils and animal fats. The company used its MultiComponent 2750 EP-NIR analyzer to measure the amount of biodiesel in blends and the amounts of the contaminants water, methanol, and glycerin in synthetic 100% biodiesel samples. Calibration models were constructed with both partial least squares (PLS) and principal component regression (PCR) methods, with PLS proving better than PCR, except for the water measurements.

NanoDrop debuts multisample system

(2) NanoDrop Technologies, Wilmington, Del., has developed a new UV-Vis spectrophotometer, the ND-8000, that can analyze eight 1-L samples at one time. Most samples can be analyzed without performing dilutions or using cuvettes or capillaries; samples are pipetted directly onto a fiber-optic measurement surface and can be recovered. According to the company, users can process a 96-well plate in about five minutes. The ND-8000 is available through NanoDrop's demo program, which ships instruments free of charge to laboratories for a one-week evaluation.

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

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