Participants from Around the World Recognized at the First Annual SLAS Conference and Exhibition

CHICAGO – The Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS) is pleased to announce the winner of the $10,000 SLAS Innovation Award. Dan Dungeon Huh was honored for his exceptional podium presentation, A Human Breathing Lung-on-a-Chip for Drug Screening and Nanotoxicology Applications, during SLAS2012. Huh was announced as the winner during the closing keynote session at the First Annual SLAS Conference and Exhibition, February 4-8, San Diego, CA, USA.

The SLAS Innovation Award recognizes up to 10 finalists from a roster of submitted abstracts thoroughly reviewed by the Innovation Award Judges Panel. Qualifying abstracts were selected based on their demonstration of extraordinary vision, originality, seminal technology, applications and strategies. Once on-site in San Diego, the judging panel attended and evaluated each finalist’s presentation and collectively selected the winner of the SLAS Innovation Award based upon the impact on laboratory science and technology, originality and creativity, quality of the science and oral presentation. Huh was presented with a $10,000 check on the final day of SLAS2012.

“Every year, we receive many unique, high-quality submissions for this competitive award, and this year was no exception,” says Jörg Kutter, Ph.D., Chair of the SLAS Innovation Award Judges Panel. “The presentations by all nine finalists this year were outstanding, but Dan’s examination of Lung-on-a-Chip for Drug Screening and Nanotoxicology was deemed as demonstrating the most cutting-edge research and will most significantly impact our scientific community.”

In addition to the SLAS Innovation Award, SLAS presented the SLAS New Product Award (NPA) Designation to four companies with the top new products showcased on the exhibit floor. This year’s NPA winners are:

• Dynamic Devices – 96VVP Liquid Handling Robotic Head
• Fluidix – Air Film
• Siloam Biosciences – OptiMax Microplates
• Tecan – HP D300 Digital Dispenser

SLAS also recognized the authors of scientific manuscripts published in the Journal of Laboratory Automation (JALA) with the JALA Readers’ Choice Award and the Journal of Biomolecular Screening (JBS) with the JBS Readers’ Choice Award. This year’s winning manuscripts are:

• JALA Readers’ Choice Award – “A Review of Electronic Laboratory Notebooks Available in the Market Today” (from JALA 16.1) Authors: Michael Rubacha, Anil Rattan and Stephen Hosselet
• JBS Readers’ Choice Award – “Imaging and Analysis of 3D Tumor Spheroids Enriched for a Cancer Stem Cell Phenotype” (from JBS 15.7) Authors: Fredika Robertson, Marcia Ogasawara, Zaiming Ye, Khoi Chu, Ross Pickei, Bisrat Debeb, Wendy Woodward, Walter Hittelman, Massimo Cristofanilli and Sanford Barsky

Rounding out the award recipients at SLAS2012 were the student poster award winners. SLAS selected a limited number of student posters to be presented at the conference and considered for the Student Poster Awards Competition, which resulted in cash prizes. SLAS2012 student poster award winners are:

• 1st Place – Kaston Leung, University of British Columbia
• 2nd Place – Alexander Price, The Scripps Research Institute
• 3rd Place – Janna Hutz, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research

With more than 75% of the exhibit floor already sold out, professionals within the laboratory science and technology field are already looking forward to SLAS2013, set to be held at the Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center, Orlando, Florida, USA, January 12-16, 2013.

For more information on SLAS2012, visit http://www.SLAS2012.org. To stay informed about SLAS2013, please visit http://www.SLAS.org.