1st Biological AdVent in-house exhibiton

On 12 December 2013 we opened doors for the 1st Biological Advent in-house exhibition in the framework of the academia-industry cooperation Students Lab "Fascinating Environment".

This event allowed all of our industry partners to present not only their contributions to the lab's equipment but also other products from their portfolio. The audience consisted of colleagues from other biological institutes as well as many interested students.

We could welcome nearly all of our partners: Nikon Instruments, Tecan, Hettich, Büchi, Memmert, Prior Scientific, Integra Biosciences, Promega, BFI Optilas, Mettler Toledo. All representants were pleased with how the exhibition went and showed interest to repeat it.

In the past we had already one "Industry Day 2010", but the following years we found no capacities to organise a second event. With the date fixed to the time before Christmas we want to make this exhibition an annual activity. Next round will also have useful lectures by our partners, e.g., on the very basics of microscopy, weighing practice, functioning of a monochromator and the like.

As a sideeffect, I had another opportunity to create a logo.

Micronucleus assay goes robotics

In future our micronucleus assay (MNC) will run semi-automatically using a slideloader and a software-controlled automatic stage attached to a fluorescence microscope with a camera. Together with Nikon GmbH and Prior Scientific Instruments GmbH we successfully tested this combination as a measure for a dramatic increase in sample throughput of the MNC. Furthermore this allows to have well documented MNC results. For several cell types also a software-based evaluation should be feasible.

The equipment is the most recent addition to the high-end technology facilities in our Students Lab Fascinating Environment. Nikon as well as Prior are partners of this fruitful academia-industry initiative. We also produced a movie clip showing the equipment at work. I will link it here soon.