Notícias

Nikon Instruments, Inc. a world leader in the development of advanced optical technology, today announced that R&D Magazine has recognized Nikon's White Light TIRF Microscopy Illumination System, a high performance, low cost evanescent wave illumination system for microscopy, as one of the most technologically significant products introduced over the past year. This is Nikon's second R&D 100 Award after winning last year for the Nikon CoolScope microscope, a self contained, easy to use system for pathology imaging and robotic consultation.

"Nikon Instruments is pleased to receive an award that acknowledges the significance of our White Light TIRF Illumination System," said Mr. Stan Schwartz, vice president for Product and Marketing, Nikon Instruments. "We designed and manufactured the system and new optics to reach a level of performance and affordability that has never before been achieved."

Winning an R&D 100 Award provides recognition of excellence known to industry, government, and academia as proof that the product represents one of the most innovative ideas of the year. Some of the most advanced and revolutionary innovations over the last 50 years have been recognized by R&D Magazine including liquid crystal displays and HDTV technology.

Nikon's White Light TIRF Microscopy Illumination system is a cost effective alternative to laser TIRF systems costing up to five or ten times more, and consists of an epi-fluorescence illuminator and a specialized microscope objective lens. The illuminator uses a standard multi-spectral mercury arc lamp which eliminates interference fringes associated with traditional laser illumination. Nikon's new 60X and 100X TIRF 1.49 NA objectives lens provide the highest numerical apertures ever achieved in oil immersion lenses. Taken together, the system provides the Nikon TE2000 inverted microscope with new capabilities for evanescent wave, oblique variable angle, and standard epi-fluorescence illumination. Additionally, the White Light TIRF system provides up to a 30-fold increase in signal-to-noise enabling researchers to study events that cannot be studied with conventional illumination such as extremely thin optical sectioning of dynamic interactions of single molecules at the surface of living cells. An understanding of the interactions involved in protein synthesis and cell motility provides insights into abnormal cell metabolism occurring in diseases such as cancer.

The R&D 100 Awards, now in its 43rd year, names the most innovative new products introduced into the market over the past year as selected by a panel of independent judges and editors of R&D Magazine. All entries are judged by outside experts. Outside judges are chosen from among professional consultants, university faculty, and industrial researchers with superior expertise and long experience in the areas they are judging. They must be completely unbiased and have no conflicts of interest with any entries they are judging.

###