Cell Bio 2012 event brims with biophotonics innovations

Seemingly well-timed in the midst of the 2012 holiday season, the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB)'s annual meeting, held December 15-19, 2012, in San Francisco, CA, this year, had a lot to give to its some-7,000 attendees through its exhibition, symposia, and poster presentations. While not solely a bio-optics and biophotonics event, the innovations for these markets present on the exhibit floor, etc., didn't disappoint.

A handful of companies had chosen ASCB as their venue to unveil some of their latest innovations in this space. Here are a couple of note:

At Bio-Rad Laboratories' (Hercules, CA) booth, the company showed its S3 Cell Sorter, "the first truly walk-up automated cell sorter available," they claim, as scientists need minimal training to operate it. Equipped with one or two lasers and up to four fluorescence detectors, the benchtop system has fully enclosed fluidics and temperature control in a 2.3 x 2.1 x 2.1 ft footprint. What's more, the system is ready to sort samples in less than 30 minutes for high-throughput applications such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and fluorescent cell imaging.

Scientific instrumentation maker FEI (Hillsboro, OR) launched a light/electron microscopy combo that enables scientists to see structural and functional relationships at various resolutions in their samples with unprecedented detail, says the company. The iCorr fluorescence microscope module, which is available either as an integrated component on the company's Tecnai transmission electron microscopes or as as a retrofitted module on already installed Tecnai platforms, delivers correlative results in minutes rather than hours or days, thanks to a white-light LED source and image acquisition at 10 fps.

For BioOptics World's full report on the event, please stay tuned for the January/February 2013 issue. Until then, have a wonderful New Year!

Biomedical keynotes highlight top growth areas at Laser World of Photonics 2011

Laser World of Photonics 2011 definitely seemed larger than the 2009 event--and the final tally confirmed that indeed it was. The top two growth areas were medical technology and biophotonics, according to Messe Muenchen GmbH; this year’s conference and exhibition attracted not only 8% more visitors (for a total of 27,500) but also a record number of exhibitors (1100).

The event celebrated the 20th anniversary of optical coherence tomography (OCT) with a CLEO Europe and European Conference on Biomedical Optics (ECBO) co-sponsored technology and applications tutorial by OCT pioneer Jim Fujimoto. The MIT professor drew a standing-room-only crowd; so did the two ECBO plenary talks. One, by another OCT powerhouse, Wolfgang Drexler of the Medical University of Wein (Austria), whisked audience members through OCT history highlights, and painted an enthusiastic picture of future technology and market development.

The other ECBO plenary featured Prof. Mary-Ann Mycek of the University of Michigan (USA) discussing an optical spectroscopy technique that offers exciting promise for early detection of pancreatic cancer.

Neuroscience loves biooptics!

Normally, perusing the conference program is a good way to tell whether a trade show is a good match for your interests. If your interests are in biooptics and biophotonics, though, looking at the Neuroscience 2008 (Washington, DC, November 15-19) program would not have been a reliable indicator of relevance. There was nary a mention of technologies in the session descriptions—but the show floor was positively bursting with photonics and optics companies, both component suppliers and instrumentation vendors. That’s certainly not true of all biomedical industry events, so I was pleasantly surprised.

Normally, perusing the conference program is a good way to tell whether a trade show is a good match for your interests. If your interests are in biooptics, though, looking at the Neuroscience 2008 (Washington, DC, November 15-19) program would not have been a reliable indicator of relevance. There was nary a mention of technologies in the session descriptions—but the show floor was positively bursting with photonics and optics companies, both component suppliers and instrumentation vendors. That’s certainly not true of all biomedical industry events, so I was pleasantly surprised.

My picks for show highlights:

Lockheed Martin Aculight, which promoted its Capella infrared nerve stimulator.

Olympus showcased its FSX100 Bio Imaging Navigator all-in-one microscope system among other products that address both ends of the microscopy spectrum and cater to either the high-end user or novice microscopists.

Carl Zeiss MicroImaging made a splash by announcing four new fluorescence imaging systems, saying these additions make its family of optical sectioning microscopes the largest on the market. Zeiss also used Neuroscience 2008 to launch an educational website in collaboration with Florida State University, which intends to be a "comprehensive and independent resource to learn about the latest techniques in fluorescence imaging."

Both Zeiss and Visage Imaging showcased software working on autostereoscopic (meaning no need for red-and-blue glasses or other eyewear/headgear!) interactive 3D displays by Tridelity, which uses a parallax barrier to produce a two-view, head-tracked display for single-viewer systems or a multiview display that supports multiple viewers.

And Nikon and Thorlabs announced their collaboration to bring optical coherence tomography (OCT) to Nikon's FN1 "PhysioStation" microscope system for neurophysiology and in vivo, small-animal studies.

More information:
Tridelity