When it comes to the sales of laboratory instruments, there are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic about growth from the chemical industry over the next year. The current supply of commodity chemicals is exceeding demand. The diminished need for specialty chemicals continues to persist from downstream sectors, such as automotive and construction. Ongoing border […]

CRISPR DNA Scissors

It’s an oft-told story that the fortune of Swedish chemist and businessman Alfred Nobel was founded on patented explosives, including dynamite. While his products were used beneficially in mining and construction applications, their wartime use in munitions gave him concern that he would be remembered solely as a ‘merchant of death’. Consequently, Nobel set aside […]

In order to cultivate cells at large volumes, bioreactors are used in order to control parameters such as temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, and metabolites. Bioreactors can be used to scale up cultures as seed trains or to produce large quantities of cells for biotherapeutic or vaccine production. Over the past several years, single-use bioreactors have […]

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR), the enzymatic method of replicating DNA sequences, is used to detect and amplify a specific DNA sequence. Reverse Transcription PCR (RT-PCR) combines the reverse transcription of RNA into complementary DNA (cDNA) with DNA amplification using PCR. RT-PCR uses RNA as a template and starting material for nucleic acid amplification. RT-PCR is […]

Consumables currently comprise a little less than one-third of the total market for laboratory instruments, and their market share will grow to a little more than one-third in just a few years. One thing to keep in mind about this gain, however, is that about half the market for these consumables is being driven by […]

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a dire need for a vaccine that can effectively immunize populations and stop the spread of the disease. Consequently, many pharma companies around the world are participating in the race to develop a vaccine. Governments are also supporting these activities with public funding and by expediting the regulatory process for […]

Food Testing Microscope Vials Wheat

Given the evidence that the virus that causes COVID-19 originated in a wet market in Wuhan, China, where the virus first jumped from animal to human, the need for food safety measures has been highlighted globally. At the same time, food manufacturers and inspectors have had to contend with the operational hardships of social distancing […]

The world has changed in ways that would have been difficult to imaging just five months ago, when SDi released its flagship Global Assessment Report in February 2020. In that time, COVID-19 has dominated our lives, leaving no one untouched health wise, economically, or socially. For most involved in laboratory research and development, the first […]