Several HPLC technologies have recently emerged to provide scientists the ability to quickly run large numbers of samples. Unfortunately, these increases in analytical throughput have resulted in massive amounts of data to be generated, shifting the laboratory bottleneck from sample processing to chromatographic data analysis. To help scientists simplify analysis of chromatograms, rapidly generate standard curves and tabulate meaningful results, Nanostream introduces a suite of advanced analysis software modules to support a variety of applications, including purity assessment, Log P, Log D, CHI and solubility/permeability assessment.

Nanostream’s acquisition software offers researchers real-time visualization of chromatograms from sets of 24 samples as they are simultaneously separated using the Veloce micro parallel liquid chromatography system. Following the completion of a large set of samples in a study—e.g., a set that includes reference compounds, QC standards, and drug samples—scientists use the Veloce system analysis software to review data and to apply analysis settings to large sets of chromatograms. The batch analysis and report generation features provide scientists an efficient way to rapidly assess and report results. Users can then select assay-specific advanced software modules to easily generate standard curves and quickly compute final numerical values associated with their study, e.g., Log P or percent purity.

Coastal pollution, including plastic waste, discarded lead-acid batteries and used oils and lubricants, will come under renewed attack under a new agreement signed by the United Nations environmental agency and an international treaty body controlling hazardous wastes. The Memorandum of Understanding, signed last week in Nairobi, Kenya, by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Regional Seas Programme and the Secretariat of the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, seeks to raise awareness on hazardous waste and marine pollution.

The main area of cooperation is the environmentally sound management of hazardous wastes in order to prevent coastal and marine pollution and the two organizations will support each other with technical and legal training.

Researchers at the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, have built the largest open-source database for normal tissue from human organs. Scientists searching for genes that go awry and cause disease can use the NCI database as a crucial point of reference because it pinpoints which genes are expressed in many of the body's major organs under normal conditions, without known disease.

Scientists can compare the genes from their own biological samples to this dictionary of normal expression. "Genes identified by the database as abnormally active in a particular disease could become potential targets, guiding researchers to better candidates for new drug therapies, immune-based vaccine treatments, and potential biomarkers to help with diagnosis," explained Javed Khan, M.D., chief of the Oncogenomics Section of NCI's Pediatric Oncology Branch. A study validating the database appears in the March 2005 issue of Genome Research.

Scientists at the University of Southampton are continuing their pioneering research into diseases such as Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease (CJD) and related conditions caused by tiny particles known as prions, thanks to a £300,000 grant from the Medical Research Council.

So far, there have been 148 deaths from confirmed or probable variant CJD (vCJD) in the UK. This is the human disease thought to be caused by eating food contaminated with prions that is also responsible for the epidemic of BSE or 'mad cow disease' in cattle.

The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), announced today that the Large-Scale Sequencing Research Network will begin sequencing 12 more strategically selected organisms, including the marmoset, a skate and several important insects, as part of its ongoing effort to expand understanding of the human genome.

The National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research, which is a federally chartered committee that advises NHGRI on program priorities and goals, recently approved a comprehensive plan that identified two groups of new sequencing targets on the basis of their collective scientific merits.

Researchers at Purdue University have attached magnetic "nanoparticles" to DNA and then cut these "DNA wires" into pieces, offering the promise of creating low-cost, self-assembling devices for future computers.

Findings are detailed in a paper published online in February in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The paper was written by Purdue graduate student Joseph M. Kinsella and Albena Ivanisevic, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering and chemistry at Purdue.

Studying how computer viruses spread through the internet is helping ecologists to prevent invasions of non-native species. New research published today in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology, describes the use of network theory to predict how the spiny water flea - a native of Russia - will spread through the Canadian lake system.

Ecologists Jim Muirhead and Professor Hugh MacIsaac of the University of Windsor, Ontario have been studying the spread of the spiny water flea, Bythotrephes longimanus, through Canadian lakes. Using network theory, they built up a picture of the lakes as nodes in a network connected by human traffic, including boat trailers and anglers. Like internet viruses, which spread fastest when they attack the most widely-used email programmes, Muirhead and MacIsaac examined patterns of human vector movement to see whether some invaded systems have the potential to develop into invasion hubs.

In a new and novel study, scientists are looking to nature -- specifically, to ants, bees and viruses -- for ways to improve human collaboration during disaster relief efforts.

At the center of the scientists' sights are a sub-group of their own species -- specifically, civil engineers, who historically have had a limited role in such efforts, especially those involving critical physical infrastructures.

Supported by a five-year $2.37 million grant from the National Science Foundation, and supplemented by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the research team at Illinois is attempting to draw inspiration from the collaboration patterns that honeybees and ants use, and the spread patterns viruses typically take.

Patients with type 1 diabetes who received islet transplantation from a single donor pancreas were insulin independent one year later, according to a study in the February 16 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on medical applications of biotechnology.

Type 1 diabetes remains a therapeutic challenge, according to background information in the article. The success rate of islet (cells that produce insulin to control blood sugar levels) transplants has recently been increased markedly by transplanting a higher number of islets prepared from 2 to 4 donor pancreases. However, for islet transplants to become a widespread clinical reality, additional advances are still needed. In particular, restoration of insulin independence must be achieved with a single donor, as is also the case with pancreas transplants, to reduce the risks and costs and increase the availability of islet transplantation.