Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A) today announced the following at
Pittcon 2010:
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a major new lab informatics suite;
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a fish species verification lab-on-a-chip system;
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a major food testing lab collaboration;
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a high-performance transportable GC/MSD;
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a high-throughput single quadrupole liquid chromatograph/mass
spectrometer (LC/MS).
The company also announced a tool to facilitate third-party software
control for Agilent LCs.
OpenLAB Unified Software Suite
Agilent’s major new lab informatics suite, the OpenLAB
portfolio, is designed to enable customers to easily capture,
analyze and share scientific data throughout the lab and across the
enterprise. OpenLAB is scalable, open architecture based on industry
open standards.
Agilent OpenLAB consists of three integrated solutions: OpenLAB
Chromatography Data System (CDS), OpenLAB Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN),
and OpenLAB Enterprise Content Manager (ECM).
The system is designed to grow with customers’ needs, from a small
standalone analytical lab, through a global network with hundreds of
locations. Agilent OpenLAB is instrument-vendor neutral and protects the
customers’ investment by providing an easy migration path for their
existing systems.
Agilent OpenLAB CDS is based on the popular ChemStation and
EZChrom Elite instrument systems, which means customers don’t have to
sacrifice familiar workflows to realize OpenLAB’s advantages.
Agilent OpenLAB ELN makes the efficiencies and security of
electronic lab notebooks accessible to a wider range of labs, including
those doing routine analytical work in fields such as hydrocarbon
processing, environmental analysis, pharmaceutical food safety, and
forensics.
Agilent OpenLAB ECM is a secure, central repository enabling
customers to capture, manage, share, archive, and re-use any data in
most file formats.
Agilent also introduced the Instrument Control Framework (ICF), a
software component making it faster and easier for third-party software
to control Agilent liquid chromatography (LC) systems in chromatographic
data systems or workstations. Based on new standard instrument drivers
from Agilent, ICF eliminates much of the delay and effort associated
with software developers using low-level instrument control codes to
write their own native drivers. ICF is available to software developers
at no cost.
Fish Species Verification
The Agilent
Fish Species Identification method speeds and simplifies the use of
DNA to identify fish species in food products. The Agilent Fish Species
Identification method makes this highly accurate technique feasible for
routine verification of seafood labeling and detecting species
substitutions.
The system uses an Agilent DNA Fish Species ID Ensemble with an Agilent
2100 Bioanalyzer lab-on-a-chip system, and specialized RFLP Decoder
Software. The DNA analysis method is based on polymerase chain
reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP). The method
is far more accurate and robust than existing protein-based tests, and
also reduces the time needed to confirm species in food from days to
hours.
Major Food Lab Collaboration
Agilent
and the National Center for Food Safety and Technology (NCFST) today
announced that they have entered into a collaboration to develop new
scientific methods for food testing, with the goal of solving a wide
range of persistent problems facing global food supply chains.
As part of the collaboration, Agilent will equip the NCFST lab in
Summit-Argo, Ill., with an extensive assortment of the latest analytical
chemistry and life science instrumentation including: