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 […]
Cancer is a disease that has been described and treated from almost the beginnings of human history, albeit in a very limited way at the start. Ancient Egyptians used surgical methods to remove visible tumors, though they recognized the limitations of their methods and knew it was not a true cure. One of the earliest […]
Throughout the course of the COVID-19 pandemic thus far, much of our attention at SDi has been on technologies that have benefited in the wake of the pandemic. The few bright spots in an otherwise dismal market have been technologies used in clinical diagnostic testing for COVID-19, the illness caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. To […]
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 […]
Later this month, SDi will publish an ambitious new title, the SDi Global Laboratory Consumables 2020 report. Obviously, consumables play an important role in the overall laboratory tools market, and we have long tracked these products in our flagship Global Assessment Report, but it’s fair to say that the Global Assessment Report focuses more detail […]
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 […]
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 COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact across all areas of analytical instrumentation, from small academic labs to large pharmaceutical production. Environmental testing labs have been no exception, with many having to focus on COVID-19 testing or having to furlough staff. Environmental testing is conducted by a variety of industries, including utilities, government regulators, […]
