Lab Manager Magazine^®

Managing Projects

According to PMI (the Project Management Institute), project management is the application of knowledge, skills and techniques to execute projects effectively and efficiently. It is a strategic competency for organizations, enabling them to tie

Hazcom 2012: Are You Prepared?

Working in the safety and health field, I knew that OSHA rules took a long time to develop and perhaps longer to change. I did not really think about how long it took or why. I just knew that in my thirty-plus years of protecting workers and

Streamlining the Chemical Inventory Process

Darryl Braaksma is a senior business and financial   consultant for ChemSW. He has more than 25 years of experience serving a major corporation in research and analytical laboratory, environmental management and financial comptroller roles

Science Matters: Getting the Project Method Right

Business has changed across virtually every industry in this post-recession era. Companies must simply do more with less, and this is especially true in the sciences where, among many other factors, the expiration of valuable drug patents and the

Smart Project Management

Five rules for maintaining stakeholder support, managing costs and achieving goals

Killing the Project

The traditional view is that the project manager is the project champion who defends the project against budget cuts and maintains the support of project team members and stakeholders. However, sometimes the right decision is not to continue the

Evolving Training Programs

Mergers, acquisitions, downsizing and organic growth can dramatically affect the efficient functionality of your organization’s current training program. While organic growth is often a slow and measured process, the addition of a new department

Lab Manager Academy: Getting Employees to Give Their All

Do your employees simply show up for work or are they committed to making a difference? Your employees’ passion, ideas, feedback and enthusiasm are your lab’s greatest asset. Focusing on numbers does not increase your profitability, but

Concerning The Cloud

While cloud computing is merely a metaphor to signify the abstraction of technology, resources and locations, the possibility of your laboratory missing out on the biggest technological leap ever is real. There has been a lot of hype over the

Building Transparency – A Top-Down View

Drug discovery is an inherently collaborative venture that necessitates the interaction and integration of people, processes, laboratories, and technology. This is easier said than done, however.

Ask the Expert: Choosing the Right ELN for the Right Application

Contributing editor Tanuja Koppal, Ph.D., talks to two scientists—one from a large pharmaceutical company and the other from a large academic institution—about their experiences with transitioning from paper to electronic lab notebooks

Perspective On: A Food and Beverage Lab

Headquartered in the Livermore Valley in Northern California, the National Food Lab (NFL) is more than just a food and beverage testing facility. “We really are a full-service research and consulting company for the food industry, starting

The Right Choice: Centrifuges

An essential piece of basic laboratory equipment, the centrifuge applies thousands of gravitational force equivalents to a sample while spinning in order to separate structures and particles suspended in a liquid.

Electronic Laboratory Notebooks: Convergence of Data, Instrument Systems

The consulting group Atrium Research defines an electronic laboratory notebook (ELN) as “a secure system that assembles content from multiple sources that are related to each other, allows for contextual annotation, and packages in a legally

Centrifuges: Adding Safety and Versatility to High-Speed Separations

When it comes to common technology in a laboratory, centrifuges rise toward the top of the list. If a scientist wants the liquid at the bottom of the tube, but it’s distributed along the sides in droplets, centrifuge it. Need to separate the

Freeze Dryers: More Ways to Lyophilize Samples

The use of freeze dryers extends from applications in academic labs to zoos. Moreover, this technology contributes to basic research and manufacturing. For example, scientists at a zoo might use a freeze dryer to increase the concentration of a

PCR Reagents: Making it Possible to Amplify More Accurately, Even with Problematic Sequences

To get enough DNA for processing, such as sequencing the chain of nucleotides, researchers turn to the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). A series of reagents drive this process, and that includes polymerase, buffers, and so on. To make it easier for

Waste Not, Want Not

A recent visit by state and federal inspectors brought to light the importance of knowing all your waste streams intimately. Working in a large academic research institution, with all its diverse classroom laboratories, research laboratories and

Provide Secure, Adequately Spaced, Well Ventilated Storage of Chemicals

In academic institutions, the most serious issue is the restriction of access to hazardous chemicals to appropriate personnel. Students and others will steal chemicals. Keep the door to the storeroom locked and only allow authorized people to get

The Third Annual Laboratory Safety Survey

Three years ago we began surveying our readers to find out about their lab safety practices and to track how those practices change moving forward. Last year’s survey indicated fairly substantial improvement over 2010 despite the continuing

Survey Says: Are you in the Market for a Titrator?

  Potentiometric 47% Karl Fischer Coulometric 22%   Measurement of the titrant aliquot 11% Indicator

Survey Says: Are You in the Market for a UV-Vis Spectrophotometer?

The types of UV-Vis spectrophotometers our readers are using in their research.   Single Beam 43% Dual

Survey Says: Are You in the Market for a Gas Generator?

If you’ve had to lug a tank of gas to an experiment station and secure it in place, you know the hassle and danger involved. Many lab managers are turning to generators for convenience; cost also plays a part with labs needing to pay for the

Improving Performance and Sensitivity of LC/MS Instruments Using Optimized LC/MS Solvents

ABSTRACT: Increasing the sensitivity and resolution of LC/MS instruments has been an ongoing focus for instrument manufacturers. As a result of this increased sensitivity of today’s analytical instrumentation, the choice of high purity

VACUUBRAND® BVC Family of Fluid Aspiration Systems

The new family of BVC fluid aspiration systems offer the perfect solution for safe, sensitive and efficient aspiration of supernatants for a modern Biology laboratory. All models feature integrated 2 or 4 liter containment vessels for safe

Extending Homogeneous ELISA Screening in the High Throughput World:

Developments to Support Alphalisa Detection in Array Tape™ ELISA is widely used for screening and quantification of substances in biological samples. While advances have been made in delivery of partial automation for ELISA applications

Captair® Flex™– Ductless Mobile Fume Hoods with Modular Filtration Column

From the people who brought you the energy saving GreenFumeHood®, ERLAB, the one and only inventor of the ductless filtering fume hood and worldwide leader since 1968 innovates once again with the low cost Captair® Flex™ Technology, an

i.C3 ™ from Helmer: Download · Acknowledge · Access Control

The next generation of i.Series® monitoring features the i.C3 User Interface which offers constant temperature monitoring and control on all i.Series refrigerators and Freezers. The i.C3 is icon driven, featuring a 7” full-color

Accelerating 3D Microtissue Production

Fast and Efficient 3D Microtissue Production with the Viaflo 96 Channel hand-held electronic pipette Preclinical drug development relies on advanced in vitro models with a high degree of standardization to achieve maximal predictivity for an

Sensitive, High-Throughput DNA Measurement with the µMax Low Volume Microplate

Quantitation of nucleic acids is commonly performed using UV absorbance. Molecular Devices’ µMax Low Volume Microplate allows users to read up to 64 samples per plate on Spectra- Max® Microplate Readers, with sample volumes as low as 2

Technology News

      LC/MS/MS System             TripleTOF™ 4600 Acquires high resolution accurate mass MS and MS/MS data at up to 50 spectra per

Establishing Good Ergonomic Work Practices when Pipetting

PROBLEM Ergonomic injuries are widely recognized as a major factor in work place health. About one-third of all occupational injuries and illnesses stem from over exertion and/or repetitive motion. Much of this can be prevented through

Parallel Protein Purification with Improved Yield and Concentration

Problem: Protein affinity purification is typically carried out in a miniaturized format using spin columns or gravity flow methods. Both techniques have limitations. Spin columns do not maximize the capacity of a given resin because the

IR Spectroscopy for Protein Quantitation

Problem: Classical methods for protein quantitation rely on colorimetric assays, such as those involving protein-copper chelation (bicinchoninic acid (BCA) and Lowry assays) and dye-binding based detection (Bradford and “660 Assay”) or

Total Nitrogen/Total Sulfur Analysis in Low Value Crude Products Using Direct Spray Injection

Problem: With ever increasing regulatory requirements, the balance between the declining quality of incoming crude oil and the heavily regulated quality of outgoing products makes refining a very quality- conscious operation. For environmental