Planet xMAP Travels to Vienna

Luminex’s Planet xMAP Europe 2010 was held October 20-21 at the Hofburg Congress Center in Vienna, Austria with over 500 scientists in attendance to see the latest in xMAP technology from Luminex and their licensing reagent partners. A major focus of the meeting was the new MAGPIX reader for 96-well magnetic bead assays (50 plex maximum) which expands Luminex’s reader portfolio creating a lower end, value priced solution for assays developed on the xMAP platform. The well known Luminex 100/200 (96-well plates, 100/200 plex), Luminex’s flagship product, will continue to be sold along with the FlexMAP 3D (96- and 384-well, 500 plex) for higher throughput applications. The Hofburg was bustling in activity with two keynote speakers, 7 satellite sessions and 35 customers from around the world presenting their research utilizing xMAP technology. Professor Sabine Bahn, MD PhD MRCPsych of the Cambridge Center for Neuropsychiatric Research presented her work on “Disease Biomarkers in First-Onset Schizophrenia” while Carlo Croce, MD of the Centre Alexis Vautrin spoke about “Causes and Consequences of microRNA Dysregulation in Cancer”. Satellite sessions included Pathogen Detection, Immunology Monitoring, Human Genetics, Newborn Screening, Protein Research, Genomic Research and Respiratory Viruses.




Located in the center of Vienna, the Hofburg Imperial Palace was an amazing location for this year’s meeting. Back in the days of the Habsburg dynasty, rulers of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the Hofburg served as the winter residence to a line of mighty emperors. Built between the 13th and 19th centuries, the large complex currently houses a vast number of cultural and congress facilities including the official residence of the President of Austria.

19 exhibiting companies showcased their xMAP focused products to existing and new users alike. BioTek Instruments was a silver sponsor at this year’s meeting and featured the ELx50 Strip Washer and the ELx405 Washer as two different levels of xMAP sample processing automation. Both instruments were available for customer demonstrations together with their available modules for biomagnetic separation and vacuum filtration. Although users realize they can wash their samples with manual magnet stations and vacuum manifolds, it is evident that those with experience appreciate the added value of unattended operation provided by automated microplate washers. BioTek also presented a scientific poster titled "Automated Processing of Bead-based Cytokine Multiplex Assays using Multiple Washer Platforms" highlighting ELx50 vacuum and ELx50/ELx405 magnetic bead washing compared to manual processes using Cytokine Panels from Bio-Rad and Life Technologies.



By, BioTek Instruments, Jason Greene, Product Manager