IMU Biosciences, a London-based biotechnology company specializing in immune profiling and AI analysis, and UK Biobank, a research resource tracking the health of 500,000 participants, will profile immune cells in 80,000 blood samples to investigate how differences in the immune system relate to disease. The study, announced Oct. 19, will connect those measurements with participants’…
AAPS names Patrick Sinko chief science officer
The American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) has named Patrick J. Sinko, Ph.D., R.Ph., as chief science officer. Sinko will set the organization’s scientific strategy, guide scientific programming across in-person and digital platforms, and guide the direction of AAPS’s portfolio of peer-reviewed journals. Sinko, a pharmacist and pharmaceutical scientist, retains his academic appointment at Rutgers,…
OpenAI and Synopsys plan a specialized model for chip design
The ChatGPT-maker OpenAI will license Synopsys’ chip design software to develop GPT-Synopsys, a specialized AI model the companies plan to sell through a service bundling computing, model access and software licenses. The partnership centers on pairing OpenAI’s frontier AI models with Synopsys’ Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software. The multiyear agreement announced Sept. 30, alongside Synopsys’…
R&D World parent company Arrowfly launches AI for Engineers, definitive platform for engineers navigating AI
Arrowfly, the parent company of R&D World and engineering brands such as Design World, The Robot Report, EE World and Fluid Power World, today launched AI for Engineers, a year-round resource for engineers and technical leaders applying artificial intelligence in their work. In research organizations, AI has spent the past few years moving from side…
Thermo Fisher launches 250-liter, stackable environmental chambers
Thermo Fisher Scientific debuted 250-liter Heratherm environmental chambers. expanding its laboratory equipment lineup with smaller, stackable models for stability testing, cell culture and sample storage. The chambers complement the company’s existing 750-liter versions. The smaller format allows labs to stack units for simultaneous testing under different environmental conditions or for long-term studies, according to Thermo…
Upcoming Solstice webinar to examine hidden sources of lab variability
In a survey of more than 1,000 laboratory personnel across five countries, quality, safety, and purity emerged as the leading considerations when purchasing research chemicals. Cost ranked near the bottom, according to findings previously presented by Honeywell’s research chemicals business, now part of Solstice Advanced Materials. Those priorities pave the way to a larger operational…
Manny Villafaña, who brought the first lithium-powered pacemaker to market, headlines free Min-Vasive Medtech webinar series
Medical Design & Outsourcing‘s Min-Vasive Medtech webinar series runs August 18–20, with one-on-one interviews on medical device engineering and R&D strategy. The sessions are built for device developers, though the topics on the agenda cut across disciplines, including remote robotic ultrasound, multi-arm surgical robots and resorbable artificial grafts. The free, three-day series pairs Arrowfly editors…
Shimadzu updates triple-quadrupole GC-MS line with new detector, multimode inlet
Shimadzu has introduced the new triple-quadrupole GC-MS platform offers an optional multimode inlet and, on the higher-end GCMS-TQ8050 RX, a newly developed detector designed to reduce noise in trace analysis. Shimadzu says the new series delivers up to 25% higher sensitivity than previous models, while faster inlet cooling cuts maintenance waiting time from 40 minutes…
Judging panel announced for 2026 R&D 100 awards program
This year’s iteration of the esteemed R&D 100 Awards features a judging panel comprised of professionals from across the globe, who boast an impressive collection of accomplishments and honors. Finalists in this year’s 64th R&D 100 Awards will be announced at rdworldonline.com. Winners of this year’s R&D 100 Awards, along with the medalists in the…
SwRI and SMU join push to engineer solid-state battery interfaces
Solid-state batteries have clear advantages, replacing the flammable liquid electrolytes in traditional lithium-ion cells. Manufacturing them remains difficult, given the challenges inherent in solid-to-solid contact during continuous charge and discharge cycles. A central challenge in a solid-state battery is dealing with the boundary between a lithium-metal anode and solid electrolyte. That region will be the…
R&D World parent company WTWH Media is now Arrowfly
WTWH Media, the parent company of R&D World, has announced that it has renamed itself Arrowfly. The change applies to the corporate entity. R&D World keeps its name, its URL, its newsletters, its editorial staff and its archives. The Cleveland-based company operates more than 40 B2B media brands and more than 45 industry events across…
BioPharma Supply Chain & Logistics Nexus returns to San Diego in November
The 11th BioPharma Supply Chain & Logistics Nexus runs Nov. 11-12, 2026, at the Crowne Plaza San Diego Mission Valley in California. The invitation-only event covers pharma and life-sciences supply chain operations, with sessions on cold chain logistics, temperature-controlled distribution, warehousing, inventory and procurement, alongside regulatory and sustainability topics. The format centers on executive presentations,…
Elkem Silicones rebrands as Bluestar Silicones after ownership change
The specialty materials maker Elkem Silicones has rebranded as Bluestar Silicones, reviving a name the business used from 2007 to 2017. The change follows the April 30 close of Bluestar’s acquisition of the majority of Elkem’s silicones division. The company says manufacturing sites, production processes, raw materials, product names and commercial trademarks all stay the same,…
Waters targets earlier thermal runaway detection with whole-cell coin cell differential scanning calorimeter
Waters Corp. (NYSE: WAT) has launched a differential scanning calorimeter built to test fully assembled coin cells, eliminating the cell teardown step that has long made DSC-based battery safety work slow and destructive. The Waters TA Instruments Coin Cell Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC) scans fully assembled coin cells from -80 °C to 600 °C while…
R&D 100 call for nominations deadline is June 5, 2026
Still interested in entering the 2026 R&D 100 Awards this year? The final deadline to submit nominations for the 2026 R&D 100 Awards is 11:59 p.m. Friday, June 5, 2026, Eastern (New York City) time. Entries submitted by the final deadline carry a submission fee of $595. The R&D 100 Awards recognize new commercial products,…
Beckman Coulter Life Sciences introduces Echo 650 Plus Series featuring updated electronics and 54% lower power consumption
Beckman Coulter Life Sciences has announced the commercial release of the Echo 650 Plus Series acoustic liquid handlers. The launch brings redesigned electronics, a new transducer architecture, and a 54% reduction in power consumption compared to legacy Echo instruments. According to Beckman Coulter, the core is a next-generation transducer equipped with a durable titanium lens.…
Princeton researchers uncover hidden mathematical link between origami and structural design
Designing irregular structures often means wrestling with huge systems of equations. Princeton engineers have found a shortcut, using a mathematical bridge between origami and tensegrity to preserve known mechanical properties as a structure shifts into a more complex shape. Tensegrity is a structural principle where a continuous network of tension (cables or strings) and a…
Helium shortage puts lab vacuum technology under pressure
Vacuum technology keeps running into sustainability challenges. First there was a helium shortage. Then another. And another. In addition, the industry has been moving away from oil-sealed pumps and towards more sustainable methods. Helium shortages affect lab equipment Helium shortages aren’t exactly new. The gas has been through four supply crunches since 2006, each driven…
Shimadzu’s Nexera X4 UHPLC promises up to 14x productivity
Shimadzu Scientific Instruments has introduced the Nexera X4, a new ultra-high-performance liquid chromatograph aimed labs that need faster separations without sacrificing sensitivity or using excess solvent. The system, positioned for work in pharmaceuticals, food, environmental science and chemistry, builds on its Nexera platform with a low-dispersion design meant to sharpen peaks, improve separation performance and…
Northwestern unravels a key surface-control problem in high-entropy alloy catalysts
High-entropy alloys have long looked promising as catalysts because combining five or more metals can create unusually rich reactive surfaces. But researchers have struggled to control the nanoscale surface structures that shape how those particles perform. Now, a Northwestern team reports a three-step synthesis that controls both composition and surface facets in HEA nanoparticles. Applied…
MXenes, the family of 2D transition metal carbides, get a clean surface, and a 160-fold conductivity jump
MXenes, a family of two-dimensional transition metal carbides and nitrides, have drawn interest for applications including EMI shielding, energy storage, electrocatalysis and high-speed optoelectronics. But a persistent surface chemistry problem has limited their performance. Standard synthesis routes typically leave MXene surfaces with a disordered mix of oxygen, hydroxyl and fluorine terminations, which can trap and…
Why pharma R&D procurement is often still too bespoke
The pharmaceutical industry operates in a universe where the inverse of Moore’s Law holds true. In a seminal 2012 paper, investment analyst and researcher Jack Scannell coined the term “Eroom’s Law” to explain the reality that drug development tends to get dramatically more expensive over long stretches of time. While Eroom’s Law is not usually…
Shimadzu unveils new flagship GC-2060 gas chromatograph with new FID/TCD detectors
Shimadzu Scientific Instruments has introduced the Nexis GC-2060 gas chromatograph for R&D and quality control analyses in energy, chemicals, food, environmental testing and pharmaceutical applications. Marking the 70th anniversary of Shimadzu’s development of Japan’s first gas chromatograph, the new flagship GC-2060 adds upgraded Flame Ionization Detector (FID) and Thermal Conductivity Detector (TCD) detectors, a five-mode…
JetX automates LC sample preparation with integrated extraction, filtration and dilution
SOTAX used Analytica 2026 to demo JetX, an automated sample-preparation platform aimed at pharma QC labs still running content uniformity and assay tests with volumetric flasks. The system’s patented extraction technology subjects tablets, capsules, or semi-solids to a continuous jet of media inside a cell at flow rates up to 1,000 mL/min, then routes the…
3-17 KT refrigerated centrifuge targets benchtop sample processing with subzero temperature control
Sigma Laborzentrifugen brought the 3-17KT refrigerated benchtop centrifuge to Analytica 2026, targeting labs that need sub-ambient spinning in a compact footprint. The unit pairs precision-controlled cooling across a −20 to +40 °C range with a “Rapid Temp” pre-cool function that lets users bring the chamber and rotor to setpoint before loading samples. At 46 cm wide…
























