StudiesLife Science Instrumentation Scientists worldwide rely on instrumentation to further the progress of their research. Because of the close relationship between human and machine, The Science Advisory Board questioned over 1,800 scientists as to the key performance and service attributes they most value in their instrumentation. For the purposes of study, life science instrumentation is defined as scientific equipment having a purchase price of at least $25,000 USD when new and a service life of two years or more. The instrumentation reviewed includes cell analysis systems, centrifuges, chromatographs, DNA microarray instruments, fragment analysis/genotyping systems, high throughput screening instruments, mass spectrometers, microscopy systems and real-time PCR systems. Study respondents were well qualified to participate in this study as 60% of those questioned both supervise and perform experiments as opposed to just perform (20%) or just supervise (19%). While cutting edge technologies and instrumentation platforms receive all “the buzz,” the most commonly used piece of equipment in laboratories these days is still the centrifuge. Fragment analysis/genotyping systems (19%), DNA microarrays (18%), and mass spectrometers (17%) were among the least frequently used types of instrumentation. In general, the scientists were satisfied with the performance and reliability of their instrumentation. Overall, they were less pleased with their versatility, user-interface and value for price paid. Changes in instrumentation have revolutionized the way research is conducted. Instrumentation developments have advanced the progress of research in every branch of science. The trend will likely continue as researchers continue to expand their capabilities: 42% scientists surveyed say their lab plans to purchase additional instrumentation in the next 24 months. One area of research stands out as having benefited greatly from many of these achievements: drug discovery. Breakthroughs in both genomic and proteomic fields have helped to advance the drug discovery process. Additionally, technological advances, such as developments in high throughput, have served to speed up the pace of research. Additional progress in the area of sequencing has enabled scientists to uncover the complete genomes of many organisms. Another key development in instrumentation is the microarray technology that enables scientists to rapidly gain a large quantity of expression information. Real-time PCR is a valuable development because it goes beyond the end-point detection capabilities of traditional PCR reactions by automating the reactions and allowing for the amount of PCR product to be quantified as it accumulates. Advances in instrumentation have led to a staggering amount of data being generated on a daily basis. This presents another challenge to suppliers in that they must create software with bioinformatic capabilities sufficient to deal with the quantity of data. Suppliers face additional challenges with software compatibility issues. This challenge also presents opportunities because the potential market for growth in the bioinformatic field is enormous. Suppliers are dealing with this bioinformatics challenge in several ways. Some companies are manufacturing multiple categories of instrumentation that are designed to work together and speed up the workflow. “By understanding the needs of our researchers, life science instrumentation suppliers will be able to make refinements to existing instrumentation as well as to design new instrumentation that will meet these precise requirements,” explains Tamara Zemlo, Ph.D., M.P.H., Director of Science & Medical Communications of The Science Advisory Board. This combination of enhancements and innovations will extend the progress of scientific research as a whole. ### To read about your colleagues' experiences of working with different types of instrumentation, please check out the threads in the following Discussion Forum folders. Remember, you're invited to contribute your own experiences as well by responding directly to specific posts. To read the comments collectively, please click here. 1. Microscopy Systems 2. High-throughput Screeing Instruments 3. Centrifuges 4. Real-time PCR Instruments 5. DNA Microarray Instruments 6. Cell Analysis Systems 7. Chromatographs 8. Fragment Analysis/Genotyping Systems 9. Mass spectrometers Other useful instrumentation resources on The Science Advisory Board include: The Buyer's Guide Product Reviews [ View Current & Future Studies ] [ View Past Studies ] |
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