Roger Tsien and colleagues have developed new probes for detecting tumor cells at the cut edge of surgical tissue, the so called, positive margin. Acivatable cell-penetrating peptides (ACPPs) were attached to nanoparticles carrying both magnetic tags and fluorescent probes. The ability to detect positive cells at a surgical margin greatly enhanced the ability to remove a much higher percentage of cancer cells. The probe is labeled with Cy5 and gadolinium for preoperative tumor detection by MRI. See March 2, 2010, issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.


Solid state UV lasers. Several solid state UV lasers were demonstrated at CYTO 2010 including the Coherent series. With more than 250 mW of true-CW TEMoo output its one of several laser offerings with similar capabilities. This is breakthrough technology for flow cytometry applications using bis-benzimide dyes (Hoechst 33342 and 33258) for DNA content and chromosome analysis and sorting. See: tech.sales@coherent.com