Agilent Technologies and Picometrics to Co-market Capillary Electrophoresis/Laser-Induced Fluorescence (CE-LIF) Solutions
(August 16, 2005)

Picometrics has established a non-exclusive co-marketing agreement with Agilent Technologies (Palo Alto, CA USA) to co-promote CE-LIF via the coupling of its ZetaLIF Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF) Detector systems with the Agilent Capillary Electrophoresis (CE) system.

This agreement is designed to ensure that the end user obtains a seamless integration of these two powerful technologies and that the integrated system provides superb resolution and sensitivity.
CE with LIF detection is commonly employed in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry.

Typical applications of CE with LIF include the separation/detection of proteins, peptides, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, amino acids, catecholamines. A major benefit of the Picometrics LIF system is that 14 lasers that provide excitation from the UV to the infra-red can be fitted to the detector to provide the ability to use the most appropriate excitation wavelength, and the use of additional lasers is constantly being investigated.

A critical aspect in the use of LIF-CE is the ability of the analyst to tag or derivatize the compound(s) of interest to generate compounds with high fluorescence intensity to optimize the sensitivity of the assay. A major benefit of this joint agreement is that now application scientists from both Picometrics and Agilent can assist the end user to determine the optimum laser to be used with the system for the user's application.

The ZetaLIF detector couples directly to the Agilent CE system using the external detector cassette; the detector signal is provided to the Agilent ChemStation via and A/D converter and then becomes available exactly as one "internal signal". The interface between the two systems has been successfully performed in a number of laboratories and can be made by both Agilent and Picometrics personnel.

The presently initiated collaboration is also expected to allow both companies to jointly develop some new products or application in the CE-LIF analytical field.

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