March 2006

Oxford Optronix launches GelCount – an automated colony-counter for non-adherent colonies and spheriods in semi-solid media

Oxford Optronix today announced the arrival of GelCount; its latest cell colony counting system specifically developed for automated colony counting in difficult ‘3 D’ media such as soft agar and methylcellulose. For the first time, GelCount provides scientists with a dedicated and highly effective solution for counting mammalian cell colonies resulting from Soft Agar Assays, Clonogenic Assays, Survival Assays, Tumor Cloning Assays and Stem Cell Assays across a range of disciplines including Radiation Biology, Drug Discovery, Stem Cell Research and Toxicology

Making the announcement, Dr Andy Obeid, CEO of Oxford Optronix said "GelCount is in fact a complimentary device to ColCount that specifically addresses a vital niche in the automated colony counting market; namely the need to count both stained and unstained cell colonies growing in thick, gel-type media such as soft agar. From a product development perspective, this was an extremely challenging task and we had to adopt some rather clever engineering. But by combining high-resolution/high depth-of-field scanning with our proprietary digital image processing algorithms, our engineers have created a truly remarkable product that finally gives researchers a cost effective, high through-put alternative to the onerous and subjective task of manually counting colonies suspended in media layers."

To see more information on GelCount, click here.

July 2005

Oxford Optronix announces Artefact Rejection technology for its flagship range of laser-Doppler blood perfusion monitors

Oxford Optronix today announced a very significant development in laser Doppler blood perfusion monitoring; the launch of a next-generation, signal processing engine that effectively rejects motion artefact noise in the blood flow signal. Artefact Rejection Technology (ART™) substantially reduces and in most cases, completely eliminates motion artefacts or ‘spikes’ in the blood flow data arising from sensor cable movement and/or sensor-to-tissue movement.

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‘After many years of development and extensive testing, I’m thrilled that our engineers have finally advanced laser Doppler technology to the point where it can be used reliably in hitherto impossible ‘moving tissue’ blood flow monitoring applications’ said Dr Andy Obeid, CEO of Oxford Optronix. ‘This development places Oxford Optronix at the forefront of laser Doppler blood perfusion monitoring with a technology that is reliable, easy to use and effective even in the most challenging tissue monitoring environments. This is something researchers have been demanding for longer than I can remember. I’m proud that we can finally offer them a viable solution.'

ART™ will be a standard, no extra-cost, feature in all OxyFlo systems shipped from July 2005 onwards.

June 2005

Oxford Optronix announces a major update to ColCount software

Oxford Optronix announces its latest release of ColCount software (v4.3.1.2) that includes a novel, enhanced colony detection algorithm. Making the announcement, Sales Director Dr. Michael Rau says "This new algorithm (CHARM Enhanced) was developed as a result of customer feedback and provides a much improved ability to resolve overlapping colonies and identify smaller colonies present in a mixed-size distribution. Oxford Optronix is very proud of its proactive approach to finding out what our customers want and this is another example of how we’ve developed a solution that is technically relevant and focussed on meeting our customers expectations."

May 2005

Oxford Optronix introduces 3 year product warranty

Confident in the outstanding quality and durability of its products, Oxford Optronix is proud to announce that effective from the 1st May 2005, its tissue vitality instrumentation will be offered with an extendable warranty option covering both parts and labour for up to 3 years, subject to annual servicing. Making the announcement, Oxford Optronix’ CEO Dr Andy Obeid said ‘We are delighted to be offering our customers comprehensive peace-of-mind and confidence in our products with this exceptional level of warranty cover.’

February 2005

Oxford Optronix announces general availability of needle-encased tissue pO2 sensors

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Oxford Optronix proudly presents the latest member of its expanding range of tissue vitality sensors with the addition of a robust, needle-encased variant of its established tissue pO2 sensor (NP/0). Describing the device, Oxford Optronix’ CEO Dr Andy Obeid says ‘The unique construction of this needle-type sensor enables measurements of tissue oxygenation to take place actually along the shaft of the needle – i.e. away from the site of maximal tissue trauma. The ability to measure oxygen in a less disturbed tissue microenvironment is of significant benefit to the researcher’

December 2004

Oxford Optronix completes move to new, purpose-built premises

Oxford Optronix has out-grown the premises it has occupied for the past 5 years and is proud to announce the successful completion of its move to new, purpose-build office and laboratory accommodation.

The generous and modern new premises are expected to meet the demands of continued projected growth over coming years and will include space for a planned state-of-the art, 90 square metre class 10,000 clean room facility for the manufacture of medical-grade devices and consumables.

April 2004

Oxford Optronix receives ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 13485:2003 certification

Following a recent audit of the quality management system by AMTAC Certification Services, Oxford Optronix has received certification to ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 13485:2003. Both of these standards make use of a process based approach to quality and business management.

ISO 13485:2003, entitled Medical Devices – Quality Management Systems, is the very latest process based system for medical device manufacturers. It replaces EN 46001, which has been withdrawn. The decision to move straight to a process based system for medical devices rather than use the intermediate step of certification to ISO 13485:2001 (based upon ISO 9001:1994) was taken so that all parts of the business could immediately benefit from process based management.

In a process based system activities and related resources are linked to form a process. At Oxford Optronix we have nine processes that interact and form our business. By determining how our processes interact we are able manage them to ensure that the whole system is focused on meeting the needs of our customers. We can measure process performance and effectiveness which in turn allows us to make continual improvements to the processes and ultimately the business.

May 2002

Oxford Optronix announces ColCount™

An automated counter of mammalian cell colonies, ColCount™ is a fully automated, laboratory bench-top system developed specifically for counting mammalian cell colonies resulting from the clonogenic cell-survival assay.

ColCount™ will be of particular interest to Cancer Biologists looking for a powerful, versatile and cost-effective alternative to labour-intensive manual counting methods.

October 2001

OxyFlo™ blood perfusion monitor receives CE-Marking

Introducing 'OxyFlo C', where 'C' stands for 'Clinical'.

Oxford Optronix proudly announces that our proven and popular multi-channel blood perfusion monitor is now CE-marked for clinical use in Europe.

Ground-breaking features of the new OxyFlo C™ include the introduction of a unique range of re-usable needle and tissue surface sensors that can be sterilized up to 20 times using standard hospital autoclave sterilizers. For the user this means improved patient safety, ease-of-use and value for money.

January 2001

Announcing OxyLab™ - entry-level Tissue Monitoring

Oxford Optronix proudly presents OxyLab™, an entry-level, single channel Tissue Monitoring System specifically developed for the laboratory and experimental user.

OxyLab™ is based on the established, award winning, fibre-optic technology of our professional, multi-channel OxyLite™ systems.