Sequestration and the macroeconomic outlook keep confidence in the doldrums

Highlights of our 2009 Investment Confidence Survey provide a glimpse into the investment decisions being made by laboratory management in staffing, outsourcing, facility improvement and new technologies–taking the pulse of confidence in economic security in these uncertain times.

Instituting economical ways to save electricity could save about three quarters of the electricity consumed in the U.S. at an average cost of about one cent per kilowatt-hour, according to Amory Lovins, chairman and chief scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute.

Getting the best value for your procurement dollars

Every year it seems the subject of continuing education can creep up on us all. We know we may need it—or want it—but why does it seem we’re always doing the last-minute hustle for something that would truly benefit our careers?

Regardless of what stage your lab is in, planning is essential to the successful application of automation and information technologies.

The reality is that most scientists are pretty normal people, at least outside the laboratory setting. There are some unique characteristics that may be more prevalent in the scientific community, and most of those characteristics can contribute positively to the organization.

Social networking sites allow recruiters to establish relationships with candidates while promoting their company and leveraging relationships into placements down the road.

Does teamwork matter in a laboratory setting? Absolutely! Teamwork contributes to synergy, creativity, enhanced decision-making, customer/client responsiveness, and an engaged, motivated working environment.

The right employee training at the right time provides big payoffs

With the aim of increasing sample integrity, designers have looked at cold storage energy sinks, associated components and subsystems to increase system efficiency. As a result, a new breed of cold storage provides greater sample protection while being kinder to the environment.

Quality by Design (QbD) refers to the strategies developed and advanced by the US Food and Drug Administration, the International Conference on Harmonisation (ICH), and the United States Pharmacopeia (USP),^1-5 based on scientific principles and risk assessment and focused on product and process understanding.

The latest equipment, instrument and system introductions to the laboratory market.

In October 2013, Lab Manager, along with BUCHI Corporation, hosted a Product Spotlight webinar to discuss the various techniques that are in use for protein analysis.

In this month’s Tech News section, we highlight exhibitors for two tradeshows—INTERPHEX 2014, which takes place March 18-19 in New York City and the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), which will be held April 5-9, 2014, in San Diego, California. 

If your pipettes have not been calibrated recently, the quality of your results and the integrity of your data are questionable. 

A series of food safety crises, including melamine contamination in pet foods; E coli-tainted spinach, peppers and green onions; and a Salmonella typhimurium outbreak in peanut products have transformed food analysts from vigilant sentries into veritable centurions stridently safeguarding the quality, regulatory compliance and safety of our food.

For lab manager Mark Lloyd, finding the motivation to come to work every day isn’t difficult. All it takes is an extra-long walk—a routine that started when he was a master’s student working at a shared resource facility at Georgetown University.

Begin by following decontamination system manufacturers' safety protocols

Virtually all labs have established procedures for managing their chemical inventories, but they may be outdated or the staff may be uninformed or poorly trained. 

Users decide between dedicated and multipurpose systems

Refractometry is thought to be a limited analytical technique that works best with binary solutions—for example, salt or sugar solutions—where it excels at precise concentration measurements.

Controlling the environment and the operation determines much of the accuracy

Controlling the environment and the operation determines much of the accuracy

Fluid extraction and containment systems is a more reliable and safe to use equipment that offers no human monitoring, total containment of waste fluid and safeguards against overfilling.

Automation offers improved productivity, reduced manual input and the elimination of Safety Health and Environment (SHE) issues associated with solvent exposure.

Design for atmospheric pressure ionization sources came of age in the late 1980s to provide a powerful analytical tool—the mass spectrometer —the ability to characterize analytes amenable to liquid chromatography as gas-phase ions removed from the liquid. The motivating force behind such invention has always been the need to answer questions better and faster with tools that provide greater utility.

Problem: Vacuum pumps are laboratory workhorses, providing the conditions needed to run many lab applications. Unfortunately, pumps are also exposed to acid or organic chemical vapors that can cause some real maintenance issues. Particularly with oil-sealed, rotary vane pumps, the exposure of the oil to the chemical vapors can cause the oil to become corrosive, or to break down and no longer serve its vital lubricating function. Regular oil changes are needed to protect the pump.

Problem: In almost any laboratory or scientific research facility today, there are numerous devices, instruments or processes that require cryogenic fluids or gases supplied from cryogenic sources. The past quarter-century has seen cryogenic liquid cylinders expand from a rarity in laboratories with relatively few applications, to become the dominant mode of supplying high-purity gas and cryogenic fluids.

Problem: For a lab manager, these scenarios are all too familiar:

• A medical research lab has a -20°C freezer where the door is frequently left ajar and there is no door alarm. 
• In an academic biology lab, a -20°C freezer is accessed on average 20 times an hour and also has a -80°C freezer that warms to -55°C routinely due to new lab students and sustained door openings, thinking “hmmm, what did I come here for again?”
• As a lab manager, you receive a phone call at 3 a.m. saying a freezer has alarmed which forces you to go into the lab in the middle of the night.