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Optical Design Review Checklist: Components
In our technical analytical work with clients at Kinetic River, there are many questions that come up again and again--for example, in design reviews. We have developed a series of checklists that we use to evaluate the nature and quality of technology and intellectual property. This example illustrates our design…
CYTO 2014 Notes: New Instruments Session
This is the second blog in a series covering CYTO 2014, held this May 17-22 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Mainly in the form of raw notes, the intent of this series is to highlight talks, events, and trends from the annual cytometry congress and trade show that I found noteworthy. Clarifications, corrections,…
CYTO 2014 Notes: Fluorescence Lifetime Workshop
This is the first blog in a series covering CYTO 2014, held this May 17-22 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Mainly in the form of raw notes, the intent of this series is to highlight talks, events, and trends from the annual cytometry congress and trade show that I found noteworthy. Clarifications,…
CYTO 2014 Preview
Hard to believe it’s already May. The activity at Kinetic River has been intense this winter and spring, with new product launches, articles in technical journals and trade magazines , and a variety of speaking engagements—not to mention expansion into new office and laboratory quarters We’ll brief you on all this in more detail in…
Power to the Designers!
This past March 20th I was invited to give a seminar at the Northern California Section of the Optical Society of America, held at PARC. Titled Advances in Optical Design, the talk focused on the emerging paradigm of parametric design. Fig. 1. Parametric design in architecture. Parametric design has been popularized by eye-popping architectural…
Introducing the Danube II
Fluorescence Lifetime Flow Cytometer In cell biology and cancer research, there is often the need to measure cellular processes, protein function, protein-protein interactions, or molecular transport with subcellular resolution. Fluorescence lifetime is a powerful tool that can provide this information. Traditionally, fluorescence lifetime techniques (such as FRET-FLIM) have been carried…
2013 Year-End Newsletter
Dear Clients and Partners, As the year draws to a close, we’d like to take the opportunity to focus on some key recent developments. 2013 has been a year of partnerships: From our very productive continuing collaboration with Prof. Jessica Houston at New Mexico State University, to our expanded relationship with great…
Busy Fall Speaking Schedule for Kinetic River
It's been a busy summer. In several instances over the last couple of months I have been honored with invitations to participate and contribute to events relevant to the life sciences / biophotonics / medical device communities. Here are the upcoming opportunities to hear first-hand what Kinetic River is up…
Cytometry Innovations Continue to Surprise Insiders
CYTO 2013 (XXVIII Congress of the International Society for Advancement of Cytometry), the annual “watering-hole” gathering for cytometrists of all shapes and sizes, took place in San Diego this year, and it was exciting as ever. The scientific program turned up a number of interesting new research results, and the trade…
Market Discontinuities—Ice in Hot Water
Recently I've had the chance to hear a thought-provoking lecture by Paul Yock, Professor of Medicine and Director of Biodesign at Stanford University, at the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Bio2Device Group. Dr. Yock spoke about the global evolution of medical device innovation, focusing in particular on the example…
If You Can Make Your Car Tires Screech, You Can Build a Laser
While this is not exactly the typical required experience you find in high-tech job descriptions, the point is that to learn how to make tires screech, you’ve already had to master a delicate balance between energy storage and energy dissipation. And that’s the key principle on which a special kind*…
Bet You Didn’t Know You Could
I think I should start by explaining what a streak camera is. Then I’ll explain why you should care. At least I’ll explain why I care! A streak camera is a superbly sophisticated instrument used in ultrafast physics and spectroscopy experiments that allows you to record incredibly short events (on…
Kinetic River Corp. Launches Danube Fluorescence Lifetime Flow Cytometer
Time-resolved flow cytometry enables cell biologists to study proteins and cellular microenvironment San Francisco, Calif., USA, February 3, 2013 – Kinetic River Corp., a leader in flow cytometry instrumentation design and product development, officially launched the Danube today at Photonics West’s BiOS Expo in San Francisco, Calif. Under development since early 2012, the Danube goes…
Time to Get on the Personalized Medicine Bandwagon—Or Is It?
Personalized medicine seems all the buzz these days. People talk about things like whole-genome analysis to determine individual propensity towards specific disease states, or the development of drugs tailored to be maximally effective, and minimally side-effective, for certain narrowly defined patient sub-populations. Major scientific advances along these and other lines…
Why Your Heart is a Lot Like Alaska
I can already hear the howls—accusing the writer of callous insensitivity. Let me hasten to say that what follows has absolutely nothing to do with the heart as the metaphorical seat of emotions; and also nothing to do with Alaska as a very, very cold place (whether literally or figuratively;…
Why It’s Hard to Drive at Night After It Rains
Welcome to Giacomo’s Blog @ Kinetic River! In this blog space I plan to cover a wide range of topics, spanning optics, biomedicine, technology, and other topics I think you might find of interest. The aim is to seek to entertain, enlighten, and stimulate thoughts. Your feedback is welcome, as…