While companies insist they don’t hold back on releasing new products solely to make big splashes at Pittcon, there have been quite a few big introductions already, and the meeting is just starting.

Shimadzu kicked off the meeting last night by giving notice to its competitors that “the sleeping giant is wakening” and introducing the i3D Enterprise Service, in addition to several new gas chromatography products.

Shimadzu partnered with Integrated Analysis on the i3D, which it says is a powerful, private-cloud service for laboratories. i3D integrates storage, processing, and data mining.

According to the companies, with i3D Enterprise Service, laboratory data can be automatically and securely uploaded from instruments to a private cloud and processed on the cloud. This enables workflow execution and data mining in a fraction of the time when compared to processing on a local PC. Researchers with an Internet browser can quickly access all of their data, interrogate it from any location, and share data globally in seconds.

Waters’ largest introduction at Pittcon harks back to the company’s inception by once again collaborating with The Dow Chemical Company. Jim Waters was on hand to celebrate the latest launch. According to Waters, the Acquity Advanced Polymer Chromatography (APC) system defines a new category of chromatographic polymer analysis, yielding improved molecular weight information about polymeric species faster than ever before. The system delivers improved polymer peak resolution, particularly for low molecular weight polymers and oligomers up to 20 times faster than traditional gel permeation chromatography.

Waters also expanded its laboratory informatics offerings with the addition of Paradigm™ Scientific Search Software, which reportedly provides scientists, engineers, and managers in science-based organizations with easy and secure access to information across enterprise-wide data repositories. Easy access to critical information helps drive product innovation, development, and manufacturing, resulting in improved time to market.

Also unveiling new products at Pittcon was Hamilton Robotics. Its PCR setup STARlet™ is reportedly the first automated liquid-handling system flexible enough to accommodate any DNA amplification reagent kit, from simple setups and small budgets to highly demanding workflows.

According to the company, the PCR setup STARlet is suitable for a range of applications such as gene expression, genotyping, sequencing, or mutagenesis. It has been developed for different PCR types such as endpoint-, q-, multiplex, or linear PCR.

“This workstation makes it really easy for the user to configure different PCR assays quickly,” said Christian Arzt, product manager at Hamilton Robotics. “It can also be used for basic MasterMix preparation and even restriction and ligation reaction setup. Furthermore, an extra feature allows sample normalization either upstream for PCR setup or as a standalone function, such as sample dilution,” added Arzt.

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