PubMed · 15014517
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Caitlin Smith. 2004-03-11. Getting up speed.. https://doi.org/10.1038/428229a
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Supercritical fluid technology offers the possibility to produce dry powder formulations of biocompatible materials, overcoming the drawbacks of classical micronization processes. In this work, Supercritical Assisted Atomization (SAA) has been used to micronize alpha-cyclodextrin (alpha-CD) and hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin (HP-beta-CD). Some process parameters, such as precipitation temperature and solute concentration in the liquid solution, have been studied to evaluate their influence on morphology and size of precipitated particles. Cyclodextrins (CDs) micronization has been successful: well-defined spherical microparticles of alpha-CD and HP-beta-CD have been produced. Particle size analysis revealed that sharp distributions have been obtained: 95% of particles have diameters ranging between 0.1 and 5 microm for both CDs. X-ray and DSC analyses have been also performed to investigate CDs modifications induced by SAA processing: amorphous particles have been obtained in both cases, whereas raw alpha-CD was crystalline and raw HP-beta-CD was amorphous.
BACKGROUND: We evaluated the Iris iQ200 Automated Urine Microscopy Analyzer to find out if the instrument performed better than traditional visual bright field microscopy in detecting basic urine particles, as assessed against reference phase contrast microscopy. METHODS: The HUSLAB quality system was followed in planning and completing the evaluation process. The iQ200 instrument results from 167 mid-stream, uncentrifuged urine specimens were compared to those obtained with phase contrast reference microscopy, and to those with routine bright field microscopy. Linearity, carry-over and precision were tested according to well-established protocols. RESULTS: The iQ200 counted erythrocytes (RBC) at r=0.894 (R(2)=0.799) with Automated Particle Recognition (APR) software alone and at r=0.948 (R(2)=0.898) after re-classification. The performance for leukocytes (WBC) was r=0.885 with APR and r=0.978 after re-classification. The correlations of counting after user re-classification were r=0.927 for squamous epithelial cells (SQEP), r=0.856 for casts, and r=0.706 for non-squamous epithelial cells. The iQ200 showed good linearity and precision and no carry-over was detected. CONCLUSIONS: The Iris iQ200 was capable to count reliably RBC, WBC, and SQEP cells and to identify a fraction of bacteria and renal elements. Counting results equalled or exceeded that of routine bright field microscopy or earlier flow cytometric technology. The instrument eliminates manual sample preparation but requires a well-trained technologist for re-grouping of findings.
A novel, automated system, PNE-1080, equipped with eight automated pestle units and a spectrophotometer was developed for genomic DNA extraction from maize using aminosilane-modified bacterial magnetic particles (BMPs). The use of aminosilane-modified BMPs allowed highly accurate DNA recovery. The (A(260)-A(320)):(A(280)-A(320)) ratio of the extracted DNA was 1.9+/-0.1. The DNA quality was sufficiently pure for PCR analysis. The PNE-1080 offered rapid assay completion (30 min) with high accuracy. Furthermore, the results of real-time PCR confirmed that our proposed method permitted the accurate determination of genetically modified DNA composition and correlated well with results obtained by conventional cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB)-based methods.