Byron Brehm-Stecher, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at Iowa State University, heads the Rapid Microbial Detection & Control Laboratory that works to ensure the safety of the food supply through improved detection and inactivation of food-borne pathogens. While the laboratory uses a combination of several different analytical tools for rapid detection, a key emphasis lies on pre-analytical sample preparation (sample prep), which is the separation and concentration of target cells from complex samples and removal of interfering matrix components prior to detection. He talks about the common challenges associated with sample prep and what an ideal sample prep process should involve.

Ralph Garippa, Ph.D., independent consultant and former head of cell-based high-throughput screening (HTS) and microscopic imaging-based high-content screening (HCS) at Hoffmann-La Roche, discusses the recent trends in cell culture.

David Dooling, Ph.D., assistant director of informatics at the Genome Institute at Washington University, discusses the challenges associated with tackling vast amounts of data in large sequencing labs and shares his experiences in building and utilizing an advanced LIMS for data tracking and storage.

Stephen Barnes, Ph.D., Professor of Pharmacology & Toxicology and Director of the Targeted Metabolomics and Proteomics Laboratory at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), talks about the changes taking place in the field of mass spectrometry (MS) as it migrates from the research lab to a clinical environment.

Daniel Zimmerli, associate scientist and lead of the Separation Science Point group, discusses how his team uses high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and ultra-high performance (or pressure) LC (UHPLC) technologies for analytical and preparative work.

Emily Anna Bridges, laboratory manager in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine, shares her harrowing experiences when the aged water purification system supplying water to her research building stopped functioning entirely, after months of causing leaks and contamination problems.

Greg Herman, program manager at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) discusses his experiences planning, designing and constructing the Biological Sciences Facility and the Computational Sciences Facility at PNNL.

Marc Ferrer, Ph.D., Team Leader at the Chemical Genomics Center, which is part of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health discusses the need for automation in various laboratory settings.

Manfred Goebl, Ph.D., talks to Tanuja Koppal, Ph.D., about the due diligence that needs to be done before putting in place a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) that is both user-friendly and effective.

Murat Kantarcioglu, Ph.D., talks to Tanuja Koppal about the new technologies he is creating for mining and sharing various types of data without compromising the security or privacy of the information.

The choices that need to be made when selecting reagents and optimizing assay protocols for RNAi-based screens.

Dr. Peter Hodder, senior scientific director and head of Lead Identification Division at The Scripps Research Institute in Florida, talks about his experiences moving from big pharma to academia to set up a high-throughput screening laboratory from the ground up.