Visting Analytica - a tour with different perspectives

On May 13, 2016, I came to see the Analytica in Munich, the world's most important trade fair for laboratory technology, analytics and biotechnology, as advertised on the homepage.

As I was too late for the analytica conference that took place on May, 10-12, 2016, I first listened to Dr. Martin Pöhlchen talking about "Big Data in Personalized Medicine - Opportunities and Challenges" presented at Forum Biotech. In summary, there is huge potential for therapy in the context of personalized medicine in an ever-growing mountain of health-related data. For the successful use of this data new collaborations between different industries (e.g. pharma + IT) are necessary amongst others. Some challenges include data protection and credibility of the data.

In the jungle of 1244 exhibitors from 40 countries and attractions such as the Analytica Live Labs also very exotic stands such as the glass technology Gräfenroda GmbH could be discovered at the Analytica. This stand was made entirely of wood without using a single nail. Particularly fascinating was the decoration with hand-painted garden gnomes, as Gräfenroda is also the birthplace of the garden gnomes, as I was proudly told. ;-)

Significantly more related to daily work were interesting conversations like that with Mr. Alexander Pfülb of the laboratory L + S AG. Having previously worked also in a contract laboratory, it is always interesting to check the range of services available in order to show potential clients opportunities for external analysis. I approached the BioChem laboratory with the same intention, but I was involved in a discussion about “fair marsupials” by the two trainees. Especially coveted this year are the - admittedly - super cute "Giant Microbes" by Shimadzu who were looking for new homes.

Particularly interesting were also the technical innovations and scientific developments. For example, Bio-Rad now offers ready-to-use gels that no longer need to be dyed, but can be visualized in a suitable imager. The visualization is based on a UV-induced reaction of the trihalogen components of the gel with the tryptophan residues of the proteins, resulting in fluorescence, which is detected in the imager. In the field of microscopy, developments in the field of super resolution microscopy are trend-setting, as they can achieve resolutions below the previously possible physical resolution limit of approx. 250 nm. This makes it possible to observe processes inside the cell. For this development, the 2014 Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded. Raman spectroscopy, a technology that is simplified spoken based on light scattering and has long been used by physicists and materials scientists, is becoming increasingly interesting for life scientists too. In the pharmaceutical sector, the application of examining uniform surfaces of coated tablets would be conceivable.

In between, there are many bizarre moments at such a fair: A photographer is thrilled by the fog of liquid nitrogen and the colorful Porsche in Labexchanges’ corporate design is a bigger magnet than the sales people themselves. Whereupon I like the idea of buying and selling used laboratory equipment. Especially small (university?) laboratories with low budget might especially benefit from this...

And even the ISO 9001 can be found at the fair. I got into contact with Dr. Stephan Drewianka from Biaffin, a company investigating the binding properties of biomolecules. He is the local quality management representative and was a little nervous as Biaffin wanted to be certified according to the new ISO 9001: 2015 next week. Also Dr. Sabine Kapelle, from AdvaTec Analytics, a provider of analytics services, shared with me, in addition to potential chromatography trainings, opportunities for ISO 9001 certification.

Finally, I would like to draw your attention to the extensive training program offered by Klinkner & Partner, which ranges from DakkS audits to GLP and statistics. Also at the forefront of training is Novia, a subsidiary of Provadis based in Frankfurt. A special delicacy could be the quality day on Nov. 24, 2016 as part of the Novia Analytical Days, which will have treatment and avoidance of errors (OOS , OOT, etc.) as main topic.

Already on the way back to the subway I have been asked by a friendly gentleman of MLP, if an application training would be interesting for me. I had to smile a bit...

If you liked this article, then please also check our post about the Analytica 2018.