Peaks of Interest

Biotage signs agreements with Reaxa

Biotage (Charlottesville, Virginia) has recently signed two agreements with Reaxa (Manchester, United Kingdom). Under the first agreement, Biotage and Reaxa will develop MicroEnCat, an encapsulated palladium catalyst range optimized for use in Biotage's microwave synthesizers.

The second agreement offers Reaxa's macroporous QuadraPure metal scavenging resins prepacked in Biotage FLASH purification cartridges.

MicroEnCat prefilled vials and QuadraPure FLASH cartridges are in development for 2006 launch.

First Norwegian Prize in Analytical Chemistry awarded

The Analytical Division of the Norwegian Chemical Society has awarded Tyge Greibrokk with the Norwegian Prize in Analytical Chemistry. Greibrokk has been a major contributor to the separation sciences and analytical chemistry in Norway and internationally.

Greibrokk worked actively with most separation techniques for three decades and has authored or co-authored close to 250 articles. He is presently the editor of Journal of Separation Science and a member of the editorial boards of Chromatographia, Journal of Chromatography A, and Journal of Biochemical and Biophysical Methods.

Thermo sponsors postdoctoral position for speciation analysis

Thermo Electron Corporation (Waltham, Massachusetts) recently announced their sponsorship of postdoctoral scientist Shona McSheehy. McSheehy is based at the Center of Excellence for Speciation Analysis Techniques at the University of Pau in France and is dedicated to the development of speciation methodologies and working practices for Thermo's speciation customers.

The center was established in 2004 as a result of a collaboration agreement between Thermo and the Biogeochemistry, Ultra Trace, and Isotopic Analysis group at the University of Pau to provide teaching and training to environmental, clinical, and petrochemical elemental analysts and to expand the use of elemental speciation techniques through the establishment of robust and routine laboratory procedures.

Heckmann to become president and CEO of Chiral Technologies

Chiral Technologies Inc. (West Chester, Pennsylvania) recently announced that Thomas B. Lewis would retire as president and CEO of the company in the second quarter of 2006.

President of Chiral Technologies Europe (Strasbourg, France) Dieter Heckmann has been chosen as Lewis' successor. When Lewis retires, Heckmann will hold the position of President and CEO of both Chiral and Chiral Europe.

Heckmann began his career in the chromatography field with Eurochrom/Knauer GmbH (Berlin, Germany) in 1988 and moved to UOP (Heidelberg, Germany) in the 1990s. Heckman joined Chiral Europe in 1997 and was promoted to president in 2001.