Flow Imaging Microscopy Blog

University of Colorado PhD student, Vaida Linkuviene, along with Fluid Imaging Applications Scientist, Heather Anne Wright, and Co-Director of the Center for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at the University of Colorado, John Carpenter, recently presented a poster at the 2019 Colorado Protein Stability Conference, at which Fluid Imaging has long been a participant. Vaida has been working with the FlowCam to assess the effects mechanical stress on protein formulations in syringes.

Pictured here: Vaidi with her poster "Effects of transportation of syringes containing protein formulations through a hospital pneumatic tube system: Particle characterization by multiple methods"

Earlier this month, Harry Nelson traveled to Kuwait to train employees of KISR (Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research) on their new FlowCam Macro, and their 2012 FlowCam VS4. Dr. Rakhesh Madhusoodhanan and his colleagues at the Oceanography Research Group are very excited to expand their research with the use of their new FlowCam. 

Last week we welcomed our Australian Technical Services Director, Mark Williams from Kenelec Scientific, for advanced FlowCam training.

For more than 50 years, Kenelec Scientific has been one of Australia’s leading scientific and environmental technology companies. Based in Melbourne, with distributors located throughout Australia, they are recognized as innovative industry leaders in the supply of the latest generation technologies at competitive prices.

Will you be at the National Marine Educators Association Conference in Durham, NH next week? Stop by our booth in the Strafford Room to see our new FlowCam 5000 in action!  Bring a sample to be analyzed in the booth and see the streamlined efficiency of our new instrument.

Ever wondered how a FlowCam works, or how it compares to a traditional microscope? Read further to learn about the basic mechanics that all of our instruments use.

On Friday our team welcomed a visit from Professor Natasha Barteneva from Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan. Several years ago, Dr. Barteneva approached us with interest in setting up a Flow Cytometry laboratory for Nazarbayev University. With her unique position as a research scientist at Harvard University and Faculty Professor at Nazarbayev, she facilitated a grant for their university.  The rest, as we say, is FlowCam history.

The positive impacts of therapeutic proteins on the lives of people suffering from cancer, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, ALS, lupus, arthritis and other diseases and conditions have attracted significant investment in drug research and development.

As a result, hundreds of therapeutic protein-based drugs have earned FDA approval, with enormous benefits to human health. With the rapid growth and acceptance of these biologics, more and more information about impacts of product quality on patient outcomes has become available. Based on this growing body of evidence, one of the most important product quality attributes is the concentration and sizes of subvisible particles.

"Lives are on the line when it comes to correct understanding of how therapeutic proteins can form particulate" says Professor John Carpenter, PhD, Professor of  Pharmaceutical Sciences and Co-Director of the Center for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at the University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Read the entire article in Laboratory News

Click the infographic on the right to view larger

In microscope systems, it's the numerical aperture (NA) and the wavelength of the light that determine the minimum distance that two particles can be resolved. Clear images, accurate sizing, and consistent categorization all depend on your NA setting.

Currently the compendial method for quantifying subvisible particles equal to or greater than 10 µm and 25 µm uses light obscuration (LO), which is internationally harmonized in the U.S., European, and  Japanese Pharmacopoeia. However, numerous reports have indicated that subvisible particles smaller than 10 µm could elicit immune responses.

In 2018, a research study was performed by our customers, Dauphin Island Sea Lab, using oyster larvae from the Mobile Bay - Mississippi Sound system off the coast of Alabama. There have been concerted efforts to reestablish a flourishing population of oysters and oyster reefs in this area, in order to protect the shoreline and to save the population from rapid decline. An important piece of this puzzle is the ability to track larval transport (the movement of oyster larvae from birth to adult settlements), and this study's aim was to establish a method of tracking these larvae.