A low-profile child of the '60s, flow cytometry didn't capture the imagination of most researchers until the early 1980s. The decade saw the birth of the AIDS epidemic, and as attention focused on HIV, researchers needed a method to accurately and reproducibly characterize immune cells. Flow cytometry was suddenly thrust into the spotlight. COMPLETE KITS: Bio-Rad’s KINESIS reagent kits for flow cytometry assays A flow cytometer shines one or more lasers on a sample of cells in suspension

HIGH THROUGHPUT: PE Applied Biosystems’ ABI 394 DNA/RNA Synthesizer is controlled by a Macintosh computer. Polypeptides (proteins) and polynucleotides (DNA/RNA) are the two essentials of organic life. Just as detailed blueprints and clay bricks are essential to construction workers, shorter synthetic versions of these two molecular workhorses-peptides and oligonucleotides-are crucial to experimental biologists. Biologists put oligonucleotides to nearly as many uses as Mother Nature does

Sidebar: It's Okay To Be Fast High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is a mainstay of biological and chemical research, analytical, and production laboratories. After a researcher loads a sample mixture, the instrument pumps mixtures of solvents-usually at high pressures-through a column packed with a material that slows individual compounds to different degrees, separating the substances as they pass through the column. Once the journey is complete, a detector and often an automatic fra

As in basketball, track, and sneaker commercials, speed counts in HPLC analysis. Fast liquid chromatography (FLC) takes advantage of smaller particle size or reduced pore volume to achieve faster performance. Perkin-Elmer's Fast LC columns are packed with 3-mm particles, resulting in shorter equilibration times and lower solvent usage. The columns can enhance productivity two to five times over that afforded by conventional 15-cm HPLC columns packed with 5-mm particles, the company says. MICRA

Biologists are constantly seeking more sensitive assays to detect the presence of organisms or telltale DNA, RNA, and proteins. Although radioactive tags incorporated into the target itself (or into a complementary strand)-and later detected by Geiger counters or film exposures-have traditionally given good sensitivity, the problems of waste disposal and laboratory monitoring have driven a search for alternative tags that have radioactivity's sensitivity but avoid its hazards. Fluorescent tags-

There is a war going on to win over the hearts and minds of molecular biologists: Radioactive isotopes-long the gold standard for tagging and later detecting RNA and DNA strands- are being challenged by a new generation of fluorescent labels that promise greater flexibility with fewer disposal problems. SEQUENCE DETECTION SYSTEM: Perkin-Elmer’s ABI Prism 7700 system uses a probe with a reporter and a quencher dye attached to it. With 14C, 32P, 125I, 3H, or some other radioactive atom bui

COMPACT UNIT: Accurate Chemical and Scientific’s Saturn Micro24 microcentrifuge Centrifuges are a little like cars: For most biological laboratories they are an essential piece of equipment, but they may chug along for years with little service and less thought. When it comes time to buy a new one, make and model choices abound. With centrifuges, as with cars, capacity and features vary, but you can likely find one to meet your needs and your budget. Centrifuges work by spinning a samp

FOR MULTIPLE RUNS: ISS’s Mini-6 Gel Device can run up to six gels simultaneously. In 1897, Russian physicist Ferdinand Ruess watched as clay colloidal particles moved within clay attached to electrodes, in what may have been the first application of what is today termed electrophoresis. In the 1930s, Arne Wilhelm Kaurin Tiselius developed methods to measure the amounts on an abnormal protein in the urine of multiple myeloma patients. That work earned him a Nobel Prize in 1948, and the

SIDEBAR: Selected Suppliers of DNA and RNA Probes In the doctor's office or the research lab, the supreme value of DNA and RNA as diagnostic tools and the high potential of genetic therapy are putting a premium on DNA and RNA probes. Probes are short, single-stranded chains of nucleic acid that seek out and latch themselves to a complementary sequence of nucleic acids, often buried anonymously in a much larger section of DNA/RNA. Guanine on one chain links to a cytosine counterpart (G-C), and