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Technical Report Compares Well-to-Well Crosstalk in Luminescence Microplates
LABORATORY PRODUCTS
Laminar Flow Cabinets Educate Pupils in Conservation
The Writhlington School Orchid Project has involved hundreds of students in the twenty or more years that it has been running. Led from the start by teacher Simon Pugh-Jones, the project grew out of the after-school gardening club for students, making use of a set of old greenhouses on the school property. The club started to specialise in growing orchids and around ten years ago, they took the next step in orchid propagation, growing from seed.
In the wild, orchid seeds rely on a fungal partner to be present in order for them to germinate. In cultivation, identifying and inoculating seed with the correct fungus is extremely difficult, especially in normal greenhouse conditions, and so in vitro techniques are used. By sowing orchid seeds in sterile air provided within a laminar flow hood, on a sterilised nutrient agar medium, which supplies the seeds with the sugars, minerals, and other nutrients they need, it is possible to generate vast quantities of healthy orchid seedlings from a single seed pod.
Porvair Sciences Ltd has announced a new technical report that evaluates well-to-well crosstalk in commercially available microplates used for luminescence measurements.
The use of luminescence assays and reagents in drug discovery has increased significantly over the past decade due to a combination of ease of use, very high specificity of assays and good sensitivity at low levels of screened compounds. Modern photometric instruments are able to accurately count very low levels of photon emissions from luminescence substrates and this has led to an increasing focus on the optical crosstalk inherent in the design of microplates and the signal-to-noise ratio that can be experimentally obtained.
The technical report compares two different manufacturer’s solid white polystyrene shallow well microplates with the patented Porvair Sciences Krystal 2000 black and white design which combines white individual wells with a solid black plate matrix. A luminescent assay using Firefly luciferase was used for the comparison.
The reported experimental results demonstrate that the unique Krystal 2000 black & white plate offers significant benefits for the determination of low-level luciferase based assays in screening and drug development. The combination of effective quenching by carbon black and increased reflectivity from titanium dioxide brightener yields an improved signal-to-noise ratio and better intra-plate dynamic range, giving screeners the opportunity to screen for weaker hits, at lower detection levels or with reduced concentrations of reagents.
Designed to conform to the standard 96-well microplate format – Porvair’s Krystal 2000 black and white plate is fully compatible with all commercially available top reading luminometers, multi mode readers, robotic sample processors and automated liquid handling systems.
LAB PRODUCTS Circle no. 592
Several distributors and manufacturers of laminar flow cabinets were approached by Writhlington School as possible suppliers. Bigneat was selected, their cabinet being purchased through leading laboratory distributor, Scientific & Chemical Supplies. The main reason for this choice of cabinet supplier was based on the willingness of Bigneat to work with and support Writhlington School and other associates such as Botanic Gardens Conservation International in their work. Simon Pugh-Jones, commented: “We really think all schools should be working in clean air and teaching aseptic techniques so that students are prepared with skills which will be of use in a range of future careers in biological fields such as medical, chemical and life sciences, across to physics subjects such as microelectronics and nanotechnology.” He added: “We believe that all schools should have a laminar flow cabinet and through teaming up with organisations around the world and working with Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew we hope to pass on the benefit of our experience and knowledge”.
Bigneat laminar flow cabinets are designed to provide a high degree of protection for process or experimental apparatus in a laboratory. The fan, which draws air though HEPA filters (BS EN1822 H14 grade), is designed to provide ultra-quiet operation and low vibration level. These cabinets are suitable for direct location onto the laboratory bench or alternatively, mounted on a support frame or cupboard. Cabinets can be supplied with a variety of optional accessories including germicidal UV lamps.
LAB PRODUCTS Circle no. 594
Studying the Size of Nanogels used in Developing Drug Delivery Vehicles
The School of Chemistry & Biochemistry at Georgia Institute of Technology has chosen the NanoSight LM-20 system to help in the characterisation of dimensional changes of nanogels used in the development of drug delivery vehicles for macromolecular therapeutics.
The GIT research group of Professor Andrew Lyon works on the development and implementation of new, environmentally responsive (or ‘smart’) materials for photonic materials, bioanalysis, and biomimetics. The approach the group is taking is to design hydrogel nanoparticles that undergo large changes in their chemical, mechanical, optical, or electrical makeup in response to a chemical stimulus, biomolecular interaction, or electromagnetic field; such materials can be viewed as amplifiers or sensitisers of the environmental event. As a result of their environmental sensitivity, nanogels have potential in a number of applications.
Make Solid Phase MicroExtraction Analysis go Further
Supelco, a division of Sigma-Aldrich™, has releases the 7th Edition SPME CD featuring SPME demonstration videos, over 3,000 app - lications as well trouble shooting and theory advice.
Included on the CD is information on the metal SPME Fibres. These fibres contain a special metal alloy in the needle, plunger, and
fibre core. This metal alloy adds significantly greater strength,
resulting in up to 10 times longer fibre assembly life. This new material also allowed us to improve the fibre manufacturing process,
resulting in better inter and intra-lot reproducibility leading to greater overall reproducibility in analytical results.
LAB PRODUCTS Circle no. 593
Principal user is PhD candidate, Michael Smith. He has been very impressed with the instrument. “The NanoSight has been an enabling tool for us in the characterisation of dilute nanogel samples, where DLS fails to produce reliable correlation data. For instance, in our recent investigations of degradable nanogels, we used the NanoSight for sizing and number density estimation throughout the erosion reaction. In these studies, sample concentrations were typically very low at later stages of the degradation reaction (due to particle loss). Similarly, the NanoSight is effective at measuring the fractionated samples from Asymmetrical flow field-flow fractionation (where samples are greatly diluted following separation).”
Smith continued: “The LM-20 has also been used to characteris e a variety of other particle types in the group in conjunction with other light scattering and microscopy methods, to provide topological information for various nanoparticles.”
NanoSight’s approach, known as Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA), has been shown to be ideally suited to both research and process control use. The system is an extremely powerful nanoscale research and development tool for looking a broad range of particle types and concentrations.
LAB PRODUCTS Circle no. 595
New Balance Risk Check
Check the quality of your weighing process with Mettler Toledo’s new online GWP® Check for balances and scales.
Risk
Fast and simple to use, the online tool provides users with expert advice on how to optimise their quality system. To run a own risk check simply visit
www.mt.com/gwp-riskcheck and have a go.
To ensure the accuracy of weighing results, balances should be inspected, calibrated and tested at regular intervals. Therefore Good Weighing Practice (GWP™) plays a critical role in ensuring uncertainty is kept to a minimum and results are always accurate.
Users can find out how they can immediately benefit from simplified testing procedures and save time and money.
LAB PRODUCTS Circle no. 596
LABMATE UK & IRELAND - JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010
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