Polymer Laboratories looks to the stars for biomagnetic beads

Polymer Laboratories (PL) has launched a new range of high-performance particles for biomagnetic separations in bioscience applications.

LodeStars are high-quality, superparamagnetic beads, designed specifically as a powerful magnetic platform for bioscience and diagnostic applications.

PL's patented technology and proprietary manufacturing practices have created copolymer microparticles with a microcrystalline ferric oxide component uniformly dispersed throughout the bead. As a result, the beads move rapidly in an applied magnetic field, but as no permanent magnetism is induced, the LodeStars fully disperse once the field is removed.

The range is also designed as a superior solid phase in manual and automated bioassay, and for the isolation and manipulation of targets in biological samples, e.g. cells, proteins, nucleic acids and other molecules.

Specific biomolecules, such as antibodies, Streptavidin, lectins and DNA binding proteins, are coupled to the bead's surface. In bioassays, this determines which analyte is measured, and in isolations which component of a complex biological mixture will be separated. It has applications across wide areas of research, diagnostics and therapeutics, as well as in the development of new products in molecular medicine.