Live cell imaging is made possible by a confluence of advances in imaging, computing, microscopy, and reagent technologies, connected by a deeper understanding and appreciation for cellular processes.

Our six experts from both industry and acadmia provide their thoughts on HPLC systems in this Q&A, commenting on which systems work best for them, and more.

Nowhere is the controversy over instrument upgrades more animated than in HPLC, or more correctly, in the debate over switching from HPLC to UHPLC.

Although by no means the only operational issue involved in HPLC, cost of ownership is something everyone considers and ultimately comes to grips with. 

Unlike many other mature analytical technologies, HPLC seems to have entered a period of intense innovation and competition. 

For automated liquid handlers (ALHs), a secure investment means modularity, flexibility, scalability, and upgradability.

Refractometers are analytical instruments that measure the refractive index (RI) of liquids. Physicists define RI as the ratio of the speed of light in a vacuum divided by its speed through a test medium.

Microplate handlers are specialized robotic devices that transfer microtiter plates in three-dimensional space from one location within a workflow to another. The “locations” are actually operations such as solvent addition (through liquid handling), aspiration, heating, shaking, incubation, washing, reading, and storage.

The news in analytical balances comes not from hardware but from user interface and software algorithms that translate electrical signals to weight. 

Laboratory stirring and mixing are carried out by either magnetic stirrers (including hot-plate models), table-type agitators and shakers, shaker-incubators, or overhead stirrers. All have their niches.

Thermal analysis, or calorimetry, correlates temperature-dependent events to physical characteristics of a sample, such as mass, structure, strength, brittleness, elongation, decomposition, evolved gases, oxidation, reduction, or physicochemical structure.

Lab refrigerators and freezers must be versatile enough to serve diverse markets because a great deal of feature overlap exists within the lab refrigeration market. Yet significant differentiation exists as well.

Those whose only brush with titration came in a freshman chemistry lab may be surprised to learn the significance of titration in companies that manufacture materials, drugs, foods, and beverages.

Streamlining workflows while improving accessibility

“Shaken, not stirred” was James Bond’s preferred mixing method for martinis. Similarly, biological shakers aerate and mix cells with their media by the action of a moving platform.