FlowCam^® - Flow Imaging Microscopy Blog

After fielding many requests from FlowCam users, we are happy to announce that we have made available expanded taxonomic libraries. These example libraries illustrate some common genera found in Casco Bay (in the Gulf of Maine) and show examples of how users may organize libraries for their own unique area. The 42 libraries cover 37 different taxa.

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.

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).

Cell-based medicinal products (CBMPs) are gaining importance as therapeutic treatments for many life-threatening diseases. This study was designed to develop a method to characterize CBMPs using flow imaging microscopy (FIM) for the detection, quantification, and characterization of subvisible particulate impurities.  Recently, FIM has been applied to study cell viability and confluency in cell culture as well as quality of CBMPs. Comprehensive particle characterization can be limited when using the morphological parameters derived from the embedded software due to the complexity of CBMPs, which may consist of multiple particulate populations of highly heterogeneous morphologies.

Yokogawa Fluid Imaging Technologies' distributor to India's Biopharmaceutical market is Bioscreen Instruments. Bioscreen's Field Application Specialist, Jamuna Yadhav, shared with us the following testimonial and case study about their experience using the FlowCam to analyze injectable drug samples.

We were recently honored to be included in the video below, featuring us alongside other international companies that use imaging to further science and technology. Take a look!

VisualSpreadsheet 5 image analysis software (ViSp 5) represents a new platform for FlowCam data organization. Introduced in 2019, our upgraded software moves away from a simple hierarchy of folders and instead utilizes a database structure.

Biopharma labs working in drug development will be excited to learn about the module for fully-integrated compliance with 21 CFR Part 11 regulations mandated by the US FDA.

What CAN'T be run through the FlowCam? The list below shows the majority of substances that have been imaged and analyzed on the FlowCam over the course of our 20 year history. Is your application on the list? If not, send us a sample, and we'll add it! Keep reading below to learn more about some of our favorite applications.

We use our Flow Imaging Microscopy blog as a platform to bring you relevant news and academic research, as well as highlighting developments and new uses of FlowCam technology. This year we published 68 blog posts on a large variety of subjects. Keep reading to see the countdown to the most popular post of 2019.