High performing teams consistently fare better than their competitors, especially when the pressure is on.

Risk and related concepts such as risk management and risk communication can be difficult for lab managers to fully understand. However, those same managers may be engaged in actions associated with potentially disastrous risks.

Karyn M. Usher is an analytical chemist in the Department of Natural Sciences at Metropolitan State University in Saint Paul, MN. At Metro State, her research has focused on sample preparation for the determination of analytes in complex matrices by high performance liquid chromatography.

Dr. Guido Verbeck discusses recent developments in mass spectrometry with contributing writer Tanuja Koppal, PhD

Sports is big business, which is why leagues and federations are desperate to keep their franchises honest. In the US, Major League Baseball (MLB) received a record $9 billion in revenues in 2014, while the National Football League took in close to $10 billion. 

Clinicians and patients alike know that traditional cancer treatments beat up the person as much as the cancer. Success arises only if the treatment kills the cancer before the patient. For decades, researchers sought solutions that attacked only the cancer, not healthy tissue.

Once gas chromatography (GC) separates a sample into its component parts, a detector identifies them. All detectors provide certain benefits and struggle with some limitations. Whether some feature is beneficial or detrimental, however, depends on the sample and the application.

Advances in computer hardware and software, data storage and processing, optics, systems and instrumentation, labeling agents, and reagents have all contributed to the current surge in imaging in the life sciences.

Some scientific and even industrial stirring applications seem no more complex than mixing milk in your coffee, but others demand much more control. In fact, some of the most demanding stirring applications might not even sound so complicated, including dissolving powdered milk in water, combining oil and water, incorporating pigments in a base coat of paint, and so on.

Microwave digestion in concentrated acid reliably eliminates sample matrix while rendering metals to species appropriate for analysis by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry or atomic absorption.

High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is, for many scientists, an essential chromatographic technique. HPLC systems used for the separation, identification, purification, and quantification of various chemical and biochemical solutions are composed of a pump, a sample injector, a separation column, a detection unit, and a data-processor.

Automated liquid handling (ALH) systems span the range from semi-automated multichannel pipettors to room-sized systems. The industry is trending toward versatile, modular ALH systems—seemingly for every budget. Likewise, instrumentation, software, and methods have followed the trend toward greater user accessibility.

Whether to employ central washing stations or point-of-use washers located under a lab bench or in a corner is something that has to be addressed with regards to laboratory glassware washers. The former provide an economy of scale and are popular with lab workers who, almost universally, hate to “wash the dishes.” The downside for central washing stations is that glassware tends to disappear over time, due to breakage and operator error.

Glove boxes go by many different names and are used for many purposes. However, their essential attribute is the ability to maintain a completely separate environment from ambient. Glove boxes are completely closed compartments ranging in size from a few cubic feet to several hundred cubic feet and differ from other safety enclosures in two significant respects: users can introduce articles into glove boxes and manipulate them inside through ports fitted with gloves, and glove boxes typically use a specialized atmosphere.

Problem: In the analytical sciences the common image of mass spectrometry involves researchers in a core facility, analyzing spectra generated by a machine the size of a refrigerator. Because conventional mass spectrometers operate under extreme vacuum, they must be coupled with pumps that are expensive, bulky, noisy, and fragile. These powerhouse systems are designed to accommodate a wide variety of often-disparate needs, and this flexibility adds complexity in both operation and maintenance.

Problem: Research into gastrointestinal diseases often presents clinicians and researchers with difficulties in terms of collecting samples from patients for analysis. The very nature of the gastrointestinal tract makes it relatively inaccessible for simple, effective sampling. Current processes require the patient to collect samples of stool, have a rectal swab taken or a tissue biopsy during endoscopy. Each of these methods is not without its problems, whether for the patient, the clinician, or the researcher.

Floor-standing ultracentrifuges and high-performance centrifuges are vital to many bioproduction  processes. Instruments are run in Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) environments, and must support compliance with these regulations. Innovative features built into Optima XPN and Avanti JXN Series centrifuges support GMP compliance while eliminating much of the administrative work of other systems.

At IDBS, our sights are firmly set on enabling collaboration, helping research and development (R&D) organizations gain greater insight from their data and getting their products to market quicker. So we asked ourselves how we could make this simpler. With E-WorkBook 10, not only will you have the power and performance you’ve come to expect from E-WorkBook, you’ll also discover the simplicity and ease of use that comes from an intuitively designed interface, and the flexibility and mobility that comes from our web-based spreadsheet technology.