Company Announcements

Royal Philips Electronics and Bruker BioSpin signed a memorandum of understanding in September for the development of a Magnetic Particle Imaging (MPI) scanner for the preclinical market. Bruker would manufacture the product, which both companies would comarket. MPI uses the magnetic properties of iron-oxide nanoparticles.

Bruker BioSpin signed a memorandum of understanding with Aspect Magnet Technology in September to develop a desktop preclinical MRI system, which would combine their respective 1 T permanent magnet system and MRI spectrometer technology.

Varian signed a reseller’s agreement for Steady State Imaging’s SWIFT Software for its research MRI systems. SWIFT can silently image structures and tissues invisible to conventional MRI systems, according to Varian.

In November, Bruker appointed Dr. Bernd Gewiese and Dr. Werner Maas as co-presidents of Bruker BioSpin, effective February 1. They are both currently executive vice presidents.

Product Introductions

Varian introduced the 400 MHz OneNMR probe for both direct (carbon) and indirect (proton) detection in a single multiuse probe, available in a manually or automatically tuned version and a second version in a piezoelectric tuning module. The company also released the 7510-AS and 7600-AS autosamplers for 12 and 96 samples, respectively, and VnmrJ 3.0 software.