A new light in biotech
Traditionally, choosing a light source
for any bioanalysis has involved making tradeoffs. Powerful arc lamps are
notoriously unstable, and they generate
unwanted heat and vibration. In addition, their short lifetimes mean frequent
replacement with the expenses associated
with operator down time.
On the other hand, LEDs are small,
inexpensive and switchable; however,
they provide insufficient power unless
used in bundles—in which case, field
uniformity becomes challenging and
engineering costs soar.
Bioanalytical tools demand lighting
that is powerful, stable and cost-effective.
Lumencor accomplishes that with a
“light engine,” as opposed to a simple
source. By using a hybrid of solid-state
technologies, the company’s light engines
provide strong illumination in a compact, durable and stable subsystem. The
multicolor light engine products are
“hybrids” in the sense that each color
band is produced by a unique set of technologies and operates independently.
We optimize the technology to produce a given submodule output for that
specific spectral region. Consequently,
light engines are controllable with no need
for external bandpass filters, filter wheels,
field diaphragms, shutters or controllers.
In this way, the light engines are poised to
support robust, quantitative analyses.
Smaller, faster, cheaper
Applications for lighting in bioanalysis
abound: DNA sequencing, quantitative
PCR, lab-on-a-chip technologies, flow
cytometry, sensing and fluorescence
microscopy. Each tool requires pure,
bright, stable, uniform light. Yet, in
many cases, the lighting technology itself
limits size, performance and the price of
the bioanalytical tool.
Today, better lighting technology
means more robust analysis. However,
the implications for tomorrow’s analytical platforms are equally compelling:
c
Better lighting subsystems mean
advancing multiplexed analyses
with independently switchable
spectral bands in the microsecond time regime and no need for
cumbersome, slow filter wheels.
Multicolor analyses could proliferate with a broader palette of readily
accessible, affordable color bands.
c
Short duration pulses afford less
phototoxicity for live cell imaging. Better field uniformity, higher
intensity and source stability—in
addition to fast switching speeds—
will translate into more accurate
quantitative analysis of the fluorescent markers that track cell function
and death.
c
Miniaturization and portability for
today’s biotech instruments cannot
be advanced with today’s lamps and
lasers. Power demands alone restrict
battery operation; in addition,
safety and stability constraints limit
mobility in any practical sense.
c
The high throughput demand for
highly parallel biochemical processing strains traditional light sources
due to the high power and brightness requirements.
c
Fast switching with stable illumination would foster in situ sensing and point-of-care monitoring
platforms, in which discrimination
against ambient light would be
readily accessible.
c
Biofuel and drug discovery reactors
need lighting compatible with accelerating productivity and enhancing
the rate of targeted photosyntheses.
As the biotech market grows, increasing demand on lighting cost and performance are inevitable. Lumencor looks to
mature its next-generation light technology to support the evolution of these new
tools and to fulfill its lofty aspiration of
providing the high-performance lighting
solution for bioanalysis. t
Claudia B. Jaffe ( claudia.jaffe@lumencor.com) is
the vice president of business development and
a co-founder of Lumencor.
Features
• Spectrometer & Swept Source OCT
• Real-Time 2D and 3D OCT Imaging
• Integrated Michelson Interferometer
in Probe Minimizes Mode Dispersion
• Compact System Design Ready for
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Application of the Handheld Probe
for in Vivo Human
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