Chemical Technology March 2015

CSIR’s biotechnology spin-out company wins prestigious new product award

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.

focus on petrochemicals 25 Chemical Technology • March 2015 FOCUS ON NANOTECHNOLOGY 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

For more information contact TendaniTsedu on tel: +27 12 841 3417, email: mtsedu@csir.co.za, or go to www.csir.co.za z

Nanoparticle measurement expertise aids development of water pollution tests

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

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