Axsun Technologies has appointed Dr Andrew Grady as Director of European Sales. www.axsun.com

Urodynamix Technologies has initiated the first US-based clinical study to assess the effectiveness of its NIR spectroscopy urodynamics device for measuring bladder function in male subjects with obstruction or lower urinary tract symptoms. www.urodynamix.com

Erik SkibstedNovo Nordisk, CMC Supply, Analytical Development, Denmark. E-mail: ersk@novonordisk.com

The Agronir project by researchers at the Public University of Navarra has been awarded a prize for the best transfer of research in the Ideactive competition. The research team, lead by Carmen Jarén Ceballos with Arantza Ursua and Gloria Bergera, used NIR spectroscopy to quantify nutritional components in foodstuffs such as fats, proteins and carbohydrates, as well as parameters such as humidity and ash. The research is now being turned into a business project.

Bio-Rad is offering a series of free web seminars on the latest approaches in metabolomics, spectroscopy and ADME/Tox. www.knowitall.com

Pittcon 2007 has launched a new, re-designed website. www.pittcon.org

Analytical Spectral Devices and Dynea have signed a world-wide co-marketing agreement to bring NIR analysis capabilities to the wood panel market. The result will provide a platform for real-time measurement of the concentration of resin, wax and moisture in the manufacturing process. www.asdi.com, www.dynea.com

The 2006 Tomas Hirschfeld Award has been given to Dr Roumiana Tsenkova from Kobe University, Japan. The Hirschfeld Award is presented for outstanding achievements in the field of NIR spectroscopy. It is administered by the International Council for Near Infrared Spectroscopy and sponsored by Büchi.

Dr Tsenkova started her career in NIR in her native Bulgaria, developing a sensor for disease diagnosis (mastitis in cows). In 1990, after becoming associate professor at the Faculty of Electronics, TU Rousse in Bulgaria, she was awarded the Japanese Monbusho scholarship for a post doctoral study on sensors for robotic milking at Obihiro University, Japan. Later on, in 1992, she moved to Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan, as research fellow working on NIR spectroscopy for biomonitoring. Since 1996, she is a tenure professor at Kobe University in Japan, where her research has been in the area of using NIR and multivariate analysis for non-invasive bio-diagnosis and bio-monitoring, and for functional studies in life science. For the first time, she applied NIR for non-invasive diagnosis of disease and its understanding. Recently, she presented perturbation NIR spectroscopy to study water spectral properties in a living object and how they are related to biological functions.

Professor Yukihiro Ozaki of the Department of Chemistry of Kwansei Gakuin University, Sanda, Japan, has been chosen to receive the Gerald S. Birth Award for outstanding work in the field of NIR spectroscopy. The award is made by the Council for Near Infrared Spectroscopy and will be presented at the International Diffuse Reflectance Conference, Chambersburg, PA, USA, in August.

Thermo Electron Corporation and Fisher Scientific International Inc. have announced the merger of the two companies to form a new organisation, which will be called Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. This will be a huge company with revenues in 2007 expected to exceed $9 billion and cash flow in 2007 of $1 billion. Marijn Dekkers, president and chief executive officer of Thermo Electron and of the new company, said “…Our customers will benefit from a partnership that can provide integrated, end-to-end application solutions to reduce their costs and increase efficiency.” The merger is subject to approval by both companies’ shareholders and regulatory approval. It is expected to complete in the last quarter of 2006. www.thermo.com, www.fisherscientific.com

Gerard Downey,a* J. Daniel Kellya and Cristina Petisco RodriguezbaTeagasc, Ashtown Food Research Centre, Ashtown, Dublin 15, Ireland. E-mail: gerard.downey@teagasc.ieb Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiología, CSIC, Apdo 257, 37071 Salamanca, Spain

Thermo Electron has been named “2005 Company of the Year” by Instrument Business Outlook. The award credits Thermo with successfully meeting the evolving demands of the life science industry. www.thermo.com

Analytical Spectral Devices has launched fieldspectroscopy.com, a web resource for information on remote sensing and field spectroscopy. www.asdi.com

Bruker Daltonics has received a Product Innovation Award from Frost & Sullivan in recognition of Bruker’s contributions to a broad array of mass spectrometry technologies and for its commitment to the growing field of proteomics. www.bruker-biosciences.com

Fraunhofer Institut Photonische Mikrosysteme have developed a Micro Optical Electro Mechanical System (MOEMS) based micro spectrometer for the NIR. The development of new grating structures has provided improved sensitivity whilst still benefitting form the lower production costs of MOEMS. www.ipms.fraunhofer.de

Guided Wave has completed a licence agreement with Bayer MicroScience which enables it to market process photometers utilising Bayer technology. This was developed to fill an internal need at Bayer for online analyses too complex for available simple photometers but not needing full spectrum analysers. The technology captures many features of a full-fledged spectrometer in a small process photometer. www.guided-wave.com

Guided Wave is to acquire by merger Optical Solutions, a supplier of process photometers, diode array spectrophotometers and sample probes for use in UV/vis/NIR. www.guided-wave.com

NIR Diagnostics has signed a combined feasibility study and first option agreement with a leading consumer and hospital diagnostic company. The study will examine the capability of NIR Diagnostics’ hand-held NIR blood monitoring technology to measure glucose accurately. A second phase of the study will examine the impact of interferents on the precision and accuracy. www.nirdiagnostics.com

Polychromix has launched an e-commerce site for its portable MEMS-based analysis systems. www.polychromix.com

Thermo Electron’s Informatics business has received the 2005 Frost & Sullivan Award for Market Leadership. The award recognises Thermo’s market share leadership achieved through the implementation of market strategy, expanding operations and product innovation. www.thermo.com