Articles by Margaret Crane

Courtesy of Amersham BiosciencesResearchers who need to purify large numbers of His- or GST-tagged proteins take note: A new robotic system can speed up the process. Piscataway, NJ-based Amersham Biosciences' http://www.amershambiosciences.com ÄKTAxpress is a fully automated, robotic chromatography system that can simultaneously purify up to 16 different proteins to greater than 95% purity, according to Karsten Fjarstedt, ÄKTA product manager.The standard ÄKTAxpress system, which

Figure 1Disease in laboratory animals interferes with biomedical research.1 Infectious agents often distort experimental results to such a degree that labs must increase the number of animals under investigation to compensate for statistical variability. Moreover, some rodent pathogens are hazardous to other lab animals and to the humans who study them.This past October, in an effort not only to control infection in lab animals, but also to harmonize international standards for monitoring their

Courtesy of Vitra Bioscience The unprecedented number of promising new drug candidates coming out of drug-discovery efforts has not translated into a commensurate increase in new drugs available at the pharmacy. Drug development backlogs arise, in part, because compounds are tested sequentially, one variable at a time, says Andrew Whiteley, CEO of Vitra Bioscience, Mountain View, Calif. What's needed, he says, is a more streamlined approach that allows scientists to look at the effects of dru