Chemical Technology March 2015

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focus on petrochemicals
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Chemical Technology • March 2015
FOCUS ONNANOTECHNOLOGY
ReSyn Biosciences, a biotechnology spin-out company from the Council of
Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), has won a prestigious new product
award at the Society for Lab Automation and Screening (SLAS) conference for
its range of innovativeMagReSyn® products, which help scientists find disease
mechanisms faster.
The SLAS conference and exhibition event was held at the Walter E Wash-
ington Convention Centre in Washington, DC, from 7-11 February, 2015.
The new product award is given to companies that design unique and novel
technologies based on the potential impact these products are likely to have in
the field of automation, screening and drug discovery. “The high-performance
products, MagReSyn®, are capable of expediting research, assisting scientists
in making discoveries faster, and helping to find the mechanisms of disease.
Identifying the cause of a disease is the key component in their eventual
diagnosis and treatment,” ReSynBiosciences CEO, Dr Justin Jordaan says.
The MagReSyn® products were developed by Jordaan and his team at the
CSIR froma proprietary technology platform, which is subject to an international
patent application. Jordaan says the MagReSyn® product data demonstrated
product quality and utility and was included in the recent international scien-
tific publication by researchers at Cancer Research UK, the Institute of Cancer
Research in the United Kingdom, the University of Dundee (Scotland) and
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States of America. The
products were also used in an automated platform and described as ‘excel-
lent’ for a process frequently used in discovering the mechanisms of cancer.
Supporting information was provided in the form of scientific publications
and posters prepared in collaboration with international research and indus-
trial partners, where the MagReSyn® products played a key enabling role in
automation and screening.
A total of 296 life-sciences companies participated in the SLAS 2015 ex-
hibition, 61 of which submitted products for consideration of a new product
award designation, with a total of four awards conferred at this year’s event.
“Research is currently underway to expand the range of applications of the
technology platform to include the green production of pharmaceutical inter-
mediates and novel research and diagnostic tools. The research continues to
be supported by the CSIR through the Biomanufacturing Industry Development
Centre Programme,” Jordaan says.
For more information contact TendaniTsedu on tel: +27 12 841 3417, email:
or go to z
CSIR’s biotechnology spin-out company wins prestigious new product award
LGC (UK) scientists have contributed to a
European project to investigate the feasibil-
ity of developing water test materials to help
measure toxic water pollutants at nanogram-
per litre levels. These materials will be useful
to the European-wide battle to improve the
world’s water supplies.
As part of a project with other European
National Measurement Institutes, three test
materials have been successfully developed
for the measurement of polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons (PAHs), polybrominateddiphenyl
ethers (PBDEs) and tributyltin (TBT), which
have all been identified as a critical pollut-
ant under the EU Water Framework Directive
(WFD) – an EU law introduced to target water
pollution.
Under the WFD, all member states must
improve the condition of their water supplies,
drastically reducing the levels of major pollut-
ants by 2015. Targets were introduced on 22
December 2000, with the aim of protecting,
enhancing and restoring the condition of all
water in the natural environment.
Despite these targets, the majority of water
bodies in the UK and in other EU countries are
failing to meet the required targets. Only 27 %
of rivers, streams, lakes, estuaries, coastal wa-
ters and groundwater in England are currently
classified as being of ‘good status’ under the
standards set down by the WFDi.
One of the major barriers is the lack of
suitable measurement procedures to allow
accurate determination of pollutants at the low
levels that the Directive requires. In order to
combat this, a feasibility study was launched
under the European Metrology Research
Programme (EMRP) for the preparation of
reference materials for PAHs, PBDEs and TBT
in natural waters.
Panayot Petrov, Science Leader in the
Inorganic Analysis team within the Science
and Innovation division at LGC said: “A require-
ment of the WFD is that whole, non-filtered
waters have to be analysed. This is because
suspended particulate matter (SPM) plays a
key role in the transport and fate of organic pol-
lutants in the aquatic environment. We used
our expertise in nano-particle measurement
to characterise the small particles (<450 nm)
present in the samples. This provided neces-
sary information about the nature of themodel
SPMs used.”
Three types of ready-to-use water test ma-
terials were successfully developed for PAHs,
PBDEs and TBT at nanogram-per litre levels.
Combining the humic acids with these model
suspended particulate matter (SPM) materials
represent a step forward in the production of
test materials mimicking whole natural water
as stipulated in the European Union Water
Framework Directive. z
Nanoparticle measurement expertise aids development of water pollution tests