Product Review in 1989

Originally developed for immunoassays, magnetic beads in combination with streptavidin-biotin technology have demonstrated their power for separating DNA and RNA.

This week features a range of products to help with difficult separations, from isoelectric focusing to the concentration of shear-sensitive cells.

New biotechnology products will be exhibited at next week's Congress for Developmental Biologists in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

The polymerase chain reaction can be used to create probes for specific regions of the Drosophila genome and for chromosome walking in a library of yeast artificial chromosomes.

The retroviral Gag protein can be used to package recombinant proteins produced by mammalian cell cultures. Protein products can then be isolated easily from the recombinant virions.

A gun for firing DNA into plant cells, a disposable bioreactor and hollow-fibre membrane purification systems top this week's offerings for biotechnology.

A chemiluminescent detection kit for Western blots, ¹²⁵l-labelled proteins A and G, and DAB enzyme in tablet form are just a few of this week's products for labelling applications.

Binding fluorescent or radioactive reporter molecules to the lipid bilayer of cell membranes allows cell growth and trafficking to be monitored in vivo.

At next week's CLC '89 conference in Stockholm, Sweden, manufacturers of Chromatography products from around the world will be showing their wares.

High performance capillary electrophoresis is expected to be the fastest-growing analytical technique since HPLC. The method has already shown its utility in a variety of applications.

Mycoplasma contamination is tough to detect and even more difficult to eradicate. It is best to start over fresh from clean cell stocks, but several elimination options are available.

Products for culturing cells and tissues will be on display at next week's annual meeting of the Tissue Culture Association in Orlando, Florida.

At next week's Fifth International AIDS Conference in Montreal, Canada, a host of new products for AIDS research and diagnosis will be on exhibit.

Elusive infectious agents such as HIV-1 can be detected by nucleic acid hybridization using special probes that are amplified by the enzyme Q-beta replicase as much as a thousand million-fold.

At next week's BioExpo in Paris, France, new products range from an automated loop inoculation device to a crystallized Tris buffer preparation

The exquisite sensitivity of the polymerase chain reaction means DNA contamination can ruin an entire experiment. Tidiness and adherence to a strict set of protocols can avoid disaster.

Global phenotype analyses are now possible using a versatile redox chemistry that is readily automated with computerization and microplate technology.

At next week's meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in New Orleans, Louisiana, products for growing, analysing and engineering microbes will be on display.

This week's issue spotlights a set of levers for muscle research, thermal cyclers for enzymatic DNA amplification reactions, and an oven for cooking up high-temperature superconductors.

Chemiluminescent substrates for alkaline phosphatase and β-galactosidase are now available for use in immuno-assays and DNA hybridization assays.