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: Vaida 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. 

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.

In the Austral Summer of 2018-2019 a Norwegian research group aboard the RV Kronprins Haakon, an ice-breaking polar research vessel, traveled to the Antarctic on a research mission with two objectives: 1) to update the estimate of biomass and distribution of krill off the coast of West Antarctica and 2) to become educated on the marine environment in this area for the purpose of implementing a Feed-Back Management (FBM) system, allowing fishery managers to set catch limits based on current ecosystem health.

March 2019 — Harmful algal bloom (HAB) season is fast approaching. The City of Wichita Falls, Texas, however, has developed an integrated approach to monitor HABs that has prevented taste and odor events for the past two years.  Featured in the December 2018 issue of OpFlow, and now in the Jan/Feb 2019 issue of Texas H2O, the City of Wichita Falls shares its integrated approach to answer the following questions: 

A study by Baker Hughes demonstrates that the FlowCam^® imaging particle analysis technology is a more informative method than spectrophotometry to evaluate the demulsification of produced water. Produced water generated during oil extraction is held in skim tanks where it is treated with water clarifiers or demulsifiers. Reverse emulsion breakers (REBs) coalesce the oil into larger molecules to be skimmed, or removed, from the produced water. The efficacy of REBs and other water clarifiers on produced water is important because oil extraction companies must meet water quality environmental regulations before releasing produced water back into the environment, or they require a low oil content if the water is to be reused in the extraction process. 

Proteinaceous particles in parenteral drugs pose an immunogenic risk. These formulations are therefore rigorously characterized for optimal conformational and colloidal stability of the drug molecule. As such, they undergo thorough analysis of biophysical descriptors and extended particle characterization to ensure a safe and stable product is delivered to market with a shelf life of about two years. In this post, we summarize a recent paper by Mattison et al. (2018) published in BioProcess International on how they successfully reformulated biotherapeutics by using quantitative stability predictors and descriptors. 

December 2018 — Can microplastics be mistaken for algae? A recent study by the University of Plymouth and the Plymouth Marine Laboratory demonstrated that nylon microfibers can acquire dimethyl sulfide (DMS), a compound produced by algae, when environmentally exposed to the compound. The study also showed that Calanus helgolandicus, a chemosensing copepod that uses DMS to locate algae, their normal food source, more readily ingested microplastic fibers infused with DMS (Fig. 1).  The FlowCam was used to enumerate the microplastic fibers and evaluate microplastic fiber uptake during the experiment. 

A client in the biopharmaceutical market recently learned how the FlowCam is perfectly suited to visualize translucent plastic particles that may enter into their production process. They were frustrated with traditional microscopy that was not effective at visualizing microparticles. They turned to the FlowCam to troubleshoot their manufacturing process and were able to compare old and new data sets allowing for continuous improvement.

December 2018 — A recent study by researchers from the University of New England and University of New Hampshire has demonstrated that flow imaging microscopy is an accurate, more efficient, and more informative method of elastin-like polymer (ELP) coacervate analysis than standard methods. ELP coacervates are a class of molecules with promising applications in drug delivery vehicles, tissue engineering, environmental remediation, and more. ELP coacervate architecture is stimuli-responsive and highly tunable, making them ideal for the above-mentioned applications.