Newsletter 2006 Introduction
Those of you who are old enough to remember our last Newsletter, may recall that we had more-or-less moved into our new premises – a forty six acre Kentish Farm - or “Farm of Kent” - for the purists amongst you. We are now glad to confirm that we are firmly ensconced in various converted barns and cowsheds and are enjoying the extra space and quality of life. The invitation remains for our customers, business partners, and anyone else legitimately reading this to visit us here at any time.
Cairn's business has flourished since our move and we have recruited an additional full-time staff member, Chris Kirby, to help with Sales and the general smooth running of things. We have also taken on a Case student, Olivier Faivre, for a joint project with Prof Berthold Hedwig, Zoology, Cambridge. Our collaboration with Prof Tom Jovin's group at the Max Planck Institute, Goettingen, is progressing well, and we are involved in further collaboration with Dr Nigel Emptage, Pharmacology, Oxford and Dr John Dempster, Physiology and Pharmacology, Strathclyde. The core business activities remain the design and manufacture of leading-edge research equipment, and the integration of complete fluorescence and electrophysiological rigs, typically combining our components with selected third-party products.
On the distribution front we would like to acknowledge the excellence of some of our newer partners; in particular Isaza in Spain, System Imaging in China, and MicroLAMBDA in Singapore. Within the context of improving our own operations we have applied for and received ISO and Investors in People (IIP) accreditation.
The following sections are in no particular order, but should give you some idea of what we've been up to:
OptoLED high stability light source
Light Emitting Diode (LED) technology has been progressing rapidly in recent years, to the extent that LEDs can now replace conventional light sources in many applications. New developments have yielded devices that are both brighter and capable of operating at shorter wavelengths than their predecessors, and this trend seems set to continue.
In response to these technological advances, Cairn has developed the state-of-the-art OptoLED LED light source [more...]
Optosplit
An image splitter allows a single image to be separated into multiple ones, on the basis of wavelength and/or polarisation, which are focussed onto independent regions of a single camera. This is of value for Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET), ratiometric emission, and any dual-stain preparations where images need to be acquired with high time resolution. [more...]
Optoscan monochromator
The Optoscan Monochromator is the epi-illumination device of choice for researchers requiring speed and flexibility. It is still the only instrument of its type to offer real-time (<2msec) control of wavelength and bandwidth. Although most of the core elements of the design have remained unchanged, we have recently refined it further to improve the usability, price and performance. [more...]
A new concept in confocal microscopy
Regular followers of our activities may well recall that we have been developing what we believe to be the first commercial version of a Programmable Array Microscope (or PAM for short) in collaboration with the laboratory of Dr. Tom Jovin at the Max Planck institute in Goettingen. Working prototypes have been undergoing detailed evaluation at both locations, and we are delighted to report that the results have been fully living up to our expectations. [more...]
Fast variable-depth TIRF system
As well as our Max Planck collaboration on the PAM development, we are also running a joint project with Dr. Nigel Emptage at the Department of Pharmacology in Oxford, for the development of a Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence (TIRF) system with some novel features. [more...]
Software support
We have been busy working with a number of software providers to ensure that our products are fully supported. [more...]