Medical / Life Sciences

Assessment of inotropes in paced human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes using Ca2+ imaging

Understanding drug-mediated modulation of cardiac contractility is an important question from both a therapeutic angle and a safety/toxicity angle. Even though human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) have been validated as a suitable model for assessment of contraction (Scott C. et al, 2013), their fetal-like phenotypes, such as immature contractile apparatus and the calcium handling mechanisms have hampered full utilization. To address this limitation, we developed a multi-modal connected workflow to evaluate the effect of inotropic compounds in electrically paced human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) through calcium imaging.

Cancer diagnostics - Keeping targeted therapy on target

This webinar given by John Garratt, will cover how CPQA, Canadian Pathology Quality Assurance, assists labs to provide accurate biomarker testing by highlighting the breast cancer EQA program.

Functional electrophysiology in a well: from screening to safety

This webinar aims to illustrate how an automated advanced kinetic plate reader like the Hamamatsu FDSS can perform a wide range of electrophysiological functional assays from ion channel modulators screening to early safety studies. These possibilities are compared to those of dedicated high-throughput electrophysiological devices.

Panel discussion: Challenges associated with photonic instrumentation needed for COVID-19 diagnosis, treatment and prevention

Presented at Photonics West Preview 2021. In this panel discussion, we bring together a broad sampling of experts in fields that employ optics and photonic instrumentation with the purpose of generating thought-provoking discourse on challenges and efforts to fight the disease. Many of these efforts relate to specific applications of photonics that are making a difference including real-time PCR and spectrometer based molecular detection, antibody and antigen testing, X-ray and CT imaging, digital pathology and broader research applications like flow cytometry, genotyping and next generation sequencing for vaccine development and population studies.

Is digital pathology the answer?

Digital pathology is growing exponentially year by year since the first whole slide scanner was introduced in 1990. Initially within the UK, the market was mainly centered on research facilities, but the advantages are now being recognized within the clinical market and in particular within the National Health Service (NHS). The ever dwindling numbers of consultant histopathologists calls for innovative ways to fully utilize the current future workforce, and digital pathology is seen as one of those ways.

Roundtable discussion: the role of digital pathology in veterinary education and diagnosis

We invite you to join us for a roundtable discussion with two board certified veterinary pathologists Dr. Kevin Keel and Dr. David Gardiner. Veterinary pathology is considered an early adopter of digital pathology and had always seen the utility of these solutions to enhance education, training, drug discovery, research and diagnoses. Hamamatsu’s Scott Blakely will converse with Dr. Kevin Keel and Dr. David Gardiner in addressing how digital pathology is currently used in an academic and a commercial organization. Also, how best it could be used to train the next generation of veterinary pathologists. They will also explore how the veterinary pathology community could use digital pathology to further expand services.

Supporting the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic with photonics instrumentation

The global COVID-19 pandemic is the challenge of our time -- and in this webcast, we'll be learning about what photonics can do about it.

Panel discussion on the use of digital pathology for remote diagnosis

In this rapidly evolving healthcare landscape triggered by COVID-19, pathology, and remote diagnosis have been elevated to critical topics. Hamamatsu’s Scott Blakely will converse with Dr. Hanna and Stathonikos about overcoming the challenges associated with digital pathology implementation and the lessons learned during the process.

Photodetection in flow cytometry

In flow cytometry, the light scattered off an interrogated cell contains information about the cell. The role of a photodetector is to transform this information from light signal to electrical signal. This task makes a photodetector an indispensable component of a functioning flow cytometer. Transformation of information from one domain to another is never lossless. A photodetector, together with the front-end electronics, will always introduce some degree of noise and signal distortion, which impacts ubiquitous-to-flow-cytometry scattered plots. Absent of a perfect photodetector, a practitioner can choose between devices such as a photodiode, avalanche photodiode, photomultiplier tube, or silicon photomultiplier. However, each of these has unique opto-electronic and performance characteristics; therefore, the optimal performance - the smallest impact on the scatter plot – should be the guiding principle in the selection process of the photodetector.