Enza Zaden, a supplier of vegetable seeds for agriculture, has chosen Fluidigm's Biomark System for Genetic Engineering and the 96.96 Dynamic Array to assure the quality of its vegetable-seeds.
By using these systems, Enza Zaden is utilising genetically-based marker-assisted selection techniques to choose its seeds and to check their flavour, yields and disease resistance.
Fluidigm's Biomark System uses integrated fluidic circuit (IFC) technology to reduce complexity, improve throughput with nanolitre precision and save money (less reagent and smaller samples) for high-throughput genotyping applications.
Fluidigm's Biomark 96.96 Dynamic Array can perform 9,216 simultaneous real-time PCR experiments running gold-standard Taqman assays in nanolitre quantities.
Smartchip PCR helps validate breast-cancer SNPs Duke University Medical Center will use Wafergen's Smartchip Real-Time PCR System to conduct genotyping research projects to validate single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) related to breast cancer.
Researchers there will also use it to examine the impact the validated SNPs have on patients' disease prognosis and response to treatment.
The research may lead to the discovery of the relative importance of specific SNPs associated with breast cancer.
In turn, this information may ultimately provide physicians with new tools for determining appropriate treatments for breast cancer, while also assisting biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies in developing novel targeted therapeutics.
Dr John A Olson PhD, from Duke University Medical Center, said: 'Particularly valuable for our research team is the fact that the Smartchip system will allow us to run many samples on a single chip, providing extremely fast time to results.' US equips Iraqi labs with PCS pipette calibrators The US Army has recently bought four PCS Pipette-Calibration Systems from Artel for use in the forensics laboratories of Iraqi law-enforcement agencies.
The systems will be used in Iraqi IP Criminal Evidence Laboratories in Baghdad, Basra and Erbil, for routine pipette-calibration.
Modern forensic analytical procedures require the accurate and precise measurement of reaction components.
The handling of minute sample volumes with accuracy and precision is critical.
The Iraqi forensics laboratories will use the Artel PCS to calibrate their pipettes at six-month intervals for stronger assurance of data integrity.
The PCS produces traceable, standardised results, allowing the laboratories to ensure that analyses are consistent with international quality standards.
The system was selected as the pipette calibration tool of choice because of its ease of use and ability to measure small liquid-volumes with a high degree of accuracy and precision.
The PCS is a rapid, user-friendly instrument that automatically measures and documents the accuracy and precision of volumes dispensed from single-channel pipettes.
It is portable and robust.
It calibrates pipettes in minutes, providing laboratories with the flexibility and convenience of an internal calibration method.
