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The Centre for Advanced Instrumentation at the NETPark Research Institute collaborates with observatories world-wide in the construction, commissioning and exploitation of innovative hi-tech instruments for optical and infrared astronomy. Key research areas are advanced spectroscopy, adaptive optics, applied optics, low light level detectors and precision engineering/metrology.

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There is a growing need for individual cell manipulation in a wide range of research applications including stem cell sorting, gene and molecular delivery, cellular diagnostics, and single cell-based assays. When compared with data-averaging over a cell population, direct physical cell manipulation offers the researcher much more precise selection and understanding of cell properties.


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Study offers clue to spreading TB
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Study offers clue to spreading TB

2008-04-01
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A significant breakthrough has been made in research into how tuberculosis spreads between patients, scientists have claimed.

A significant breakthrough has been made in research into how tuberculosis spreads between patients, scientists have claimed.TB bacteria accumulate "fat" that may help them survive while passing from one person to another and also boost their resistance to drugs, a team of microbiologists from the University of Leicester and University of London found.The established view that TB bacteria coughed up by infected individuals multiply rapidly as the disease spreads could be challenged by the findings.The have discovered that the number of bacteria may not grow. Instead, the bacteria survive in large numbers by gathering fatty deposits and effectively "shutting down" to journey from one person to another.Lead investigator Professor Mike Barer, from the University of Leicester, said: "Strenuous efforts are being made to reduce the global burden of tuberculosis, a disease which kills four people every minute."Our success so far has been limited for many reasons; one of these is our failure to control the spread of TB from one person to another. Very little is known about this vital part of the bacterium's life cycle."If scientists could understand more about the transmission of TB between people, they might identify new therapeutic and preventative targets."Copyright © The Press Association 2008

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