Announcing the Winners of The Scientists Top 10 Innovations of 2018

Every year The Scientist strives to identify the latest and greatest tools, technologies, and techniques to hit the life-science landscape. For the past decade, our expert panels of independent judges have considered submissions containing some of the most innovative products speeding work in laboratories and facilitating the discovery of biological phenomena. The 2018 installment of our Top 10 Innovations competition is no exception.

“Each year The Scientist highlights both incremental steps and giant leaps in life-science technology through our Top 10 Innovations competition,” says Editor-in-Chief Bob Grant. “From new, single-cell sequencers to developments in the nucleases used to perform CRISPR genome editing, this year’s crop of winners is yet another exciting peek into the future of biology.”

This year’s selection of winning products runs the gamut from a benchtop tool for antibody discovery in single cells and a high-throughput microfluidic platform for analyzing single-cell DNA data, to an acoustic cell sorter and an open-access alternative to Cas9 enzymes.

The winners of The Scientist’s Top 10 Innovations of 2018 contest are:

1)    Cyto-Mine (Sphere Fluidics) – This new single-cell technology allows researchers to screen up to 40 million cells for a desired property, such as specific antibody secretion, and to then dispense and image cells that fit the bill into microtiter plates.

2)    Tapestri (Mission Bio) – Tapestri is a microfluidic platform for high-throughput, single-cell DNA sequencing sample prep that can handle up to 10,000 cells simultaneously.

3)    Fluidity One (Fluidic Analytics) – This protein-analysis tool calculates the average size of proteins in a sample and also measures their concentration.

4)    Chromium Immune Repertoire Profiling Solution (10X Genomics) – This technology allows researchers to distinguish each and every T and B cell in a sample, along with the genetic sequence of the Y-shape receptors on each cell.

5)    Omnitrap (Fasmatech) – Omnitrap is a radio frequency ion trap that processes proteins of even high molecular weights—a limitation of older trapping technologies—to gain information on the molecules’ sequences, structures, and molecular interactions.

6)    Acouwash (AcouSort) – AcouWash can wash cells from one medium to another, enrich or concentrate cell samples, and separate cells based on size, all using ultrasound.

7)    Dharmacon Edit-R Fluorescent Cas9 Nuclease mRNA (Horizon Discovery) – This mRNA codes for a nuclease that circumvents the problem of off-target cutting by lingering Cas9 nucleases during CRISPR-based genome editing.

8)    MAD7 (Inscripta) – The sequence for this novel DNA-cutting enzyme is available online for all research and development uses.

9)    Tycho (NanoTemper Technologies) – Tycho makes performing quality control of protein samples quick—a single run takes just three minutes—and informative, yielding data on protein–nucleic acid binding.

10)    BD AbSeq Assay (BD) – This product allows researchers to simultaneously analyze RNA and protein levels in thousands of individual cells.

Congratulations to all of this year’s winners. Be sure to visit http://www.the-scientist.com/2018-top-10-innovations where you can read more about the products that earned top spots and see bios and comments from our expert judges.

About The Scientist:

The Scientist is a publication for life-science professionals that is dedicated to covering a wide range of topics central to the study of cell and molecular biology, genetics, neuroscience, and other biological fields. The Scientist provides print and online coverage of the latest developments in the life sciences, including trends in research, new technology, news, business, and careers. It is read by leading researchers in industry and academia who value penetrating analyses and broad perspectives on life-science topics both within and beyond their areas of expertise. Written by prominent scientists and professional journalists, articles in The Scientist are concise, accurate, accessible, and entertaining.

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