January 1, 1970 (Vol. , No. )
Sue Pearson Ph.D. Freelance Writer GEN
EMD Millipore took to the road for a European tour in a specially designed vehicle containing three laboratories that focus on pharmaceuticals, academic research, and food and beverage applications. Each of the three labs is complete with equipment to perform real experiments.
“Live Lab Tour was created because there are not any large lab shows like Analytica or Achema in the U.K.,” says company spokesperson Sophie Pruvost. “We at Lab Solutions in EMD Millipore thought it would be ideal to showcase the products from these divisions and to demonstrate the company’s offerings to our customers.”
Equipment on the Live Lab Tour vehicle includes products for life science research to support scientists studying cell biology, stem cell biology, protein research, and cell signaling. The vehicle also houses a number of water purification systems.
“It’s important to use the right type of water,” explains Katie Molders of the firm’s Lab Solutions division. “If you have too many organics in water, this can affect liquid chromatography applications, as you can have high background levels and ghost peaks. If you are performing experiments using florescence, it can decrease the amount of florescence detected. This is why it’s useful to speak with scientists on this tour and show them the systems on display. We’re able to advise them on the right choices for their application.”
For scientists looking for the highest purity water, the Milli-Q® Integral water purification system includes Elix® technology. This generates both pressurized pure and ultrapure water directly from tap water. The system also includes separate points of delivery, which can be adapted with a final polisher to match specific research applications.
Also on the Live Lab Tour is a Direct-Q® water purification system with a space-saving remote dispenser for production of ultrapure water for critical applications, and the Elix Essential water purification system. The Elix has models with flow rates of 3, 5, 10, or 15 liters of pure water per hour. This system produces water suitable for use as a feed to laboratory equipment, in preparation of microbiological media, buffer, and pH solutions, and for manual glassware rinsing.
In addition to functioning as a set of mobile laboratories, the Live Lab Tour also offers an opportunity to book one-on-one meetings with an applications specialist to discuss optimizing protocols and improving laboratory workflow. During these meetings, experts are on hand to cover many of the important aspects to consider when implementing water purification or analytical systems.
They have on show TLC plates including the TLC LuxPlate® silica gel plates and HPLC columns in the Chromolith® range. They also explained some of the innovations the firm has made with the packaging in the Laboratory Essentials range, such as the Titripac® packaging system for ready-to-use TitriPUR® volumetric solutions.
The tour is visiting 10 science parks and institutions in Europe. Two more tour dates remain: June 12 in Darmstadt and June 14 in Martinsried. For more information, visit http://www.millipore.com/lab_water/cp1/live_lab_tour2012.
Sue Pearson, Ph.D., is GEN’s European writer. She checked out EMD Millipore’s Live Lab Tour last month.
