Linkam Scientific introduce students to the CMS196 cryo-CLEM stage at the Francis Crick Institute

Towards the end of September we attended the UK’s first Correlative Light and Electron Microscopy (CLEM) interactive workshop. This was held at the prestigious Francis Crick Institute, in London, and will take place in alternate years with the European EMBO CLEM course in Bristol.

The course was fully booked with eight participants from eight different institutes in the UK working in pairs throughout the week to learn different CLEM workflows. The Linkam CMS196 Cryo-Correlative stage was used during the workshop so students could get practical experience of the system and see how it fits into the Cryo-CLEM workflow.

Above is a picture of mouse embryonic fibroblast (MEF) cells, prepared by PhD student Patricia Goggin and captured by Linkam's Michael Schwertner during the ‘correlative cryo-fluorescence leading to cryo-electron tomography or cryo soft x-ray tomography’ practical. This cryofluorescence image shows the cell nuclei in blue, mitochondria in green and filamentous actin in red. 

We had a great time showing off some of the features of our cyro-CLEM stage whilst also continuing to learn about some of its applications, and our thanks go to everyone involved, especially Dr Marie-Charlotte Domart, Dr Raffa Carzaniga, Dr Lucy Collinson and Dr Paul Verkade.

Freeze Drying Webinar

On Thursday 1st October Linkam distributors The McCrone Group are running a free webinar on 'Thermal Characterization as Part of an Empirical Process for Developing Optimized Formulations and Lyophilization Cycles'.

The Webinar, presented by Dr Jeff Schwegman and McCrone technical sales representative Ruben Neiblas, introduces a well-defined process for taking an empirical approach to designing formulations, and the lyophilization cycles used to dry them.

Details and registration

The webinar preludes a course entitled ‘Lyophilization: Practical Applications Utilizing Latest Equipment’, featuring the Linkam FDCS196 freeze-drying cryo stage. This will take place from the 3rd-5th November.

The Linkam FDCS196 freeze drying system provides the ability to quickly and accurately determine collapse and eutectic temperature and intricately investigate freeze dried structure of complex samples.

Linkam supporting Correlative Light and Electron Microscopy Workshop at Francis Crick Institute

Linkam will be supporting the first UK hands-on workshop on ‘Correlative Light and Electron Microscopy', being held at the Francis Crick Institute in London from September 21st to 25th.

The workshop is organised by Raffa Carzaniga, Lucy Collinson and Paul Verkade, and will take place in alternate years with the European EMBO CLEM course in Bristol (next course in July 2016), enabling us to train more of the UK community in a wide range of CLEM techniques. The workshop will include detailed hands-on tutorials for 8-10 participants organised into groups of 2 people per tutor to maximise contact time, covering high pressure freezing and freeze substitution; preservation of fluorescence in-resin for integrated microscopy; plunge freezing, cryofluorescence and cryoEM; Tokuyasu cryosectioning and immunolabelling for correlative experiments; and 3D CLEM using Serial Block Face SEM.

The Linkam CMS196 Cryo Correlative stage will be used during the workshop so students will be able to get practical experience of the system and see how it fits into the Cryo-CLEM workflow. 

Introducing the DSC600 VISTA system at NATAS 2015

We will be attending the North American Thermal Analysis Conference (NATAS) from the 10th-13th August, to present our new DSC600 VISTA system.

We have worked in partnership with Cyversa to create VISTA - a revolutionary thermal technique that will provide Characterization Scientists with a powerful new tool for analysing materials.

Linkam’s Imaging Station is at the heart of the VISTA system and when combined with the new DSC600 VISTA hot stage, enables images of the sample to be simultaneously captured during an experiment. Thermal Analysis Sample Characterization software (TASC) from Cyversa generates curves based on the reflected light signal, to show changes in sample features that occurred during the experiment.

While DSC and TASC are complementary, TASC can reveal transitions that are difficult or impossible to measure easily by DSC, and sensitivity is not reduced with smaller samples and lower heating rates as is the case with DSC.  

A recent article in American Laboratory further discusses the advantages of this technique, with specific reference to its application in the analysis of polymer blends for drug delivery.

TASC can be used with any of our thermal stages, from the standard THMS heating-cooling stage, to the Tensile and Shear stages. TASC inventor Professor Mike Reading will be present at NATAS and available to discuss how TASC can benefit your application.

We hope to see you there!