To meet the needs for polymer particulates for the flooding of oil fields, a composite crosslinked copolymer of hydrophilic monomers [acrylamide (AM) and acrylic acid (AA)] and a hydrophobic monomer [methyl methacrylate (MMA)] was synthesized. In this study, we first added a rare‐earth thermal stabilizer and inorganic montmorillonite (MMT) clay to the copolymer; this showed that the composite crosslinked copolymer exhibited good water‐swelling performance at 200°C, with gel static grade of 5, a toughness index of 1.1170, and a salinity limit of 250,000 mg/L. It also had better injection abilities. The AM/AA/MMA ratio was 4 : 1 : 0.03 w/w, the crosslinker additive content was 0.03 wt %, the thermal stabilizer additive content was 5 wt %, and the clay (MMT) additive content was 13 wt %. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 100: 4429–4433, 2006

No abstract

Clinicians continue to rely on invasive tissue biopsies as a mean to assess a patient's disease and prescribe appropriate treatment regimens. Biopsies not only are risky and expensive but also limit the understanding of disease. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) can be isolated from a simple blood draw and offer a promising potential to both diagnose and monitor cancer progression. The VTX-1 Liquid Biopsy System automates the isolation of clinically relevant CTC populations, while simplifying their collection for easy analysis, ultimately expanding the clinical possibilities for CTCs. We present here the key features and performance of this automated system for isolating CTCs directly from whole blood, both with cell spiking experiments and patient samples. As a first step toward the characterization of CTCs for research applications and transfer to clinical practice, we present workflows for both molecular analyses and automated cell enumeration and biomarker quantification with the BioView imaging platform.

BACKGROUND:Lung cancer results from a multistep process, whereby genetic and epigenetic alterations lead to a malignant phenotype. Somatic mutations, deletions, and amplifications can be detected in the tumor itself,

Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) of uncultured amniocytes using chromosome-specific DNA probes offers the opportunity for rapid aneuploidy screening. Between 80 and 95% of all chromosomal disorders expected in the second trimester of pregnancy can be discovered within 24 hr if DNA probes specific for chromosomes 21, 18, 13, X, and Y are used. Rapid results are crucial for clinical decision-making and are helpful in decreasing the anxiety level in most patients. One of the major factors that have been preventing the rapid FISH test from being broadly incorporated into the clinical setting is the limited staff in the cytogenetics laboratories. The present study demonstrates the use of an automated scanning system (Duet, BioView Ltd. Rehovot, Israel) for analyzing FISH in uncultured amniocytes. Fifty-six amniotic fluid samples were evaluated in parallel by karyotyping, manual FISH analysis, and automatic FISH scanning. Automatic scanning provided accurate results compared to both manual FISH scoring and karyotype analysis. The correlation between automatic and manual FISH scanning was found to be very high (r = 0.9, p < 0.0001). The availability of automation for aneuploidy screening in amniotic fluid samples will enable offering this test to a broader patient population while providing fast and reliable results.