FlowCam^® - Flow Imaging Microscopy Blog

"Most drinking water utilities enter high-alert mode upon testing positive for microcystin. Staff at the city of Wichita Falls, Texas, Water Purification Laboratory responded calmly when they received that dreaded phone call in July 2018 because of their progressive approach to monitoring cyanobacteria. Climate conditions are conducive to harmful algae blooms (HABs) and taste-and-odor events with increasing frequency and intensity. As a result, US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) regulations are moving toward requiring cyanobacteria monitoring. Proactive drinking water utilities are seeking a streamlined approach to monitoring cyanobacteria and nuisance algae." Adams et. al. "Use an Integrated Approach to Monitor Algal Blooms" Opflow Dec 2018

Characterization of subvisible particles in protein therapeutics has become an increasingly important means to ensure the development of safe, stable, and effective medicines.  Many analytical techniques are available to identify and prevent not only protein aggregation, but to fulfill regulatory requirements. The purpose of this study by Danny Chou, President and Founder of Compassion BioSolution, LLC is to compare different techniques and their ability to identify subvisible particles and what relationship exists between the number of particles and different stress conditions imposed upon the protein drug products.

Flow Imaging Microscopy has been widely implemented for the analysis of particles ranging in size from 1-10µm. Yet, in recent years the FDA has highlighted the need for better analytical tools to fully understand how different stress conditions can impact the stability of the formulation. While light obscuration and membrane microscopy have been the primary methods to conduct USP testing for particles between 10µm - 25µm, regulators are now moving towards expecting orthogonal analytical methods to characterize and provide quantitative data on particles in the 2µm - 10µm range as well.

FlowCam Nano offers the ability to image and analyze particles ranging from 30µm down to as small as 300 nm.

We are very happy to announce the recipient of this year’s Aquatic FlowCam Research Equipment and Travel grant for undergraduate institutions. This grant provides students and professors with access to a FlowCam at their lab for the fall semester, as well as financial support to present their work involving the FlowCam at a North American conference (remotely, if needed).

Today we are excited to announce the recipient of this year’s Aquatic FlowCam Research Equipment and Travel grant for graduate students. This grant provides students and professors with access to a FlowCam at their lab for the fall semester, as well as financial support to present their work involving the FlowCam at a North American conference (remotely, if needed).

Metal Additive Manufacturing (also known as 3-D printing) requires carefully engineered compound metal powders in order to make high-quality end products. Authors Farzadfar et al. have determined a process for manufacturing a bimodal powder that has both the desired particle density and still flows freely.

We are happy to announce that we have made available curated galleries of our favorite aquatic images from around the world, in a variety of applications. Are you curious what your water samples would look like when analyzed on the FlowCam? Check out all of the images in our galleries, or peruse below for a sampling of what's available. This is only a small sampling of what the FlowCam is capable of; please contact us if you'd like to see more.

The team at the University of Colorado, Boulder have long been FlowCam customers, most recently incorporating FlowCam images with artificial intelligence, in the form of convolutional neural networks, to characterize and identify impurities in protein therapeutics and cell based medicines.

Hunting Energy Services (HES), Subsea Technologies Division, is a manufacturer of subsea hydraulic products for the oil and gas industry. Their suite of hydraulic valve products includes applications for drilling control, production control, and Intervention Workover Control Systems (IWOCS).

Yokogawa Fluid Imaging Technologies announced this week the release of its newest FlowCam with a fully integrated light obscuration module. By combining industry-standard light obscuration technology required for USP compliance with digital images from proven Flow Imaging Microscopy (FIM) technology, the new FlowCam + LO will soon become the preferred instrument in biopharma labs worldwide.

The Anderson (Chemistry) and Brehm-Stecher (Food Science) groups at Iowa State University have been awarded a FlowCam Research Equipment and Travel Grant from Yokogawa Fluid Imaging Technologies (YFT) for use in their ongoing research on microbiological applications of Magnetic Ionic Liquids (MILs).