New Products
Eksigent Technologies introduced this week its NanoLC-1D Plus liquid chromatography system which is configured with a third pump for rapid sample loading and washing. The new pump and flow controller technology allows for precise operation at higher pressure — 5500 psi — for higher resolution in nanobore columns, Eksigent said.
Operation of the third pump is incorporated into the Eksigent Control Software, and all of Eksigent's NanoLC systems are integrated with Thermo Xcalibur and Applied Biosystems/ MDS Sciex Analyst mass spectrometer software.
Biobase has released The Proteome databases — a collection of information on characterized and uncharacterized proteins pertaining to mammalian and model organism proteomes.
The new release incorporates Disease View reports containing a listing of diseases for which the disease-of-the-page may be a symptom. In addition, it incorporates links to Transfac and Transpath databases, which are part of the new Biobase Knowledge Library.
GeneBio launched this week e-Proxemis, a proteomics-oriented bioinformatics training portal, accessible via the Wiley InterScience platform.
According to GeneBio, e-Proxemis incorporates more than 50 databases and tools that provide the user with bioinformatics background needed to master the overwhelming number of resources available, improve and refine information search strageties, enhance capacity for critical assessment of results, and develop a proper sense of extrapolation.
More information about e-Proxemis is available at http://www.e-proxemis.com/?xtor=1.
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Movers & Shakers
The US Congress has confirmed Lester Crawford as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. He was previously acting commissioner.
Responding to the confirmation, the Biotechnology Industry Organization said that under Crawford, the FDA "must be prepared for the innovations emerging from genomics, proteomics, nanotechnology and other biotechnology applications. We're entering an era of personalized medicine and a revolution with the potential to further tame disabling and deadly diseases."
Albert-László Barabási, Emil T. Hofman Professor of Physics at the University of Notre Dame, has been awarded the 2005 Federation of European Biochemical Societies Anniversary Prize for Systems Biology by the Gesellschaft fuer Biochemie und Molekularbiologie.
The anniversary prize is awarded to scientists under the age of 40 for their "outstanding achievement in biochemistry and molecular biology." Barabási was honored for his important contributions to understanding cellular networks, such as the scale-free nature of the metabolic and the protein interaction networks.
Australian antibody array developer Medsaic has appointed Mervyn Thomas as senior biostatistician. Thomas is the founder of bioinformatics consultancy Emphron Informatics. He formerly ran the bioinformatics research program for the division of mathematics and information sciences at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. Thomas will continue as CEO of Emphron Informatics, and will work at Medsaic as part of a strategic alliance between the two firms.
Jorge Leon has been appointed as acting chief scientific officer and vice president of business development of Orion Genomics, the St. Louis-based company said this week. In addition, he has joined the company's board of directors. Leon is president of Leomics Associates, a company he founded. Prior to that, he held different positions at Quest Diagnostics. Leon holds a PhD in cellular and molecular biology from New York University.
James Mullen, president and CEO of Biogen Idec, has been elected chairman of the Biotechnology Industry Organization board of directors. Mullen replaces Richard Pops, CEO of Alkermes. Mullen joined Biogen in 1989 and was named CEO in 2000, and chairman in 2002. He holds a BS in chemical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an MBA from Villanova University.
In addition to Mullen, the following BIO board members have been named officers for 2005-2006: vice chair, Healthcare, Joshua Boger, chairman, president, and CEO of Vertex Pharmaceuticals; vice chair, Food and Agriculture, Pete Siggelko, vice president, Plant Genetics & Biotechnology, Dow AgroSciences; secretary, Joseph Scodari, company group chairman of biopharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson; and treasurer, Stephen Sherwin, chairman and CEO of Cell Genesys.
BIO has also elected 11 new members to the organization's board of directors: Catherine Bonuccelli, vice president of external scientific affairs at AstraZeneca; Geoffrey Cox, chairman, president, and CEO of GTC Biotherapeutics; Rachel King, CEO of GlycoMimetics; John Leonard, vice president of global medical and scientific affairs at Abbott Laboratories; Greg Lucier, chairman and CEO of Invitrogen; Thomas McLain, chairman, president, and CEO Nabi Biopharmaceuticals; Thomas Okarma, president and CEO of Geron; David Pyott, chairman, president, and CEO of Allergan; Feike Sijbesma, managing board of directors; Martin Soerters, president, US, Novo Nordisk; and Peter Young, president and CEO of AlphaVax.