RE: Near UV laser in FACS Aria II

Hi Maayan,

I've seen the new intrument, and yes it somes with violet and near UV in
combination if you want that.

The violet laser position is the same as the Aria I, and still goes in
via fiber optioc. The near UV sits pretty much on top of the flow
cuvette, as the wavelength is incompatible with current geneneration
fibers.

You can have only one of the two lasers on at the same time - the on/off
button on the left side panel of the instrument is now a rocker switch
which makes this pretty visual - either you switch to top or bottom
position, or to the middle (both lasers off).

My understanding it that there are a lot of good dyes out there from the
time lasers choices were few, and many people all had the same UV gas
laser (=wavelenght) going to cover the low end of the spectrum. Nowadays
we have fancy solid state minilasers at many new wavelenghts, with long
lifetimes and less power required, and replacement/add-on dyes have
emerged to accomodate the shift to higher wavelengths, like "violet".
However, for some there's no good alternative (yet), and Hoechst in one
popular dye that comes to mind. I'm making an educated guess BD mostly
wants to accomodate the many people who want to sort side populations
based on Hoechst on the Aria.

Guy

------------------------------------
Ablynx NV
Guy Hermans, PhD
Senior Scientist
guy.hermans@ablynx.com
Technologiepark 4
B-9052 Zwijnaarde
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-----Original Message-----
From: Maayan Duvshani-Eshet [mailto:duvshani@techunix.technion.ac.il] 
Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2008 19:40
To: cyto-inbox
Subject: Near UV laser in FACS Aria II


Hello everyone,

I ordered the BD FACS Aria about 4 months ago, knowing that I will
receive the Aria-II. I ordered it with 3 lasers: blue, red and violet,
and now I saw that the Aria-II can come with a near UV laser (375 nm).
Assuming that I can change the Violet laser with the near-UV laser; can
anyone advise me what will be the advantages of the Near UV laser over
the violet (405 nm) in terms of biological applications?

Thank you all in advance


Maayan Duvshani-Eshet, PhD
Infrastructure unit
The Lorry I. Lokey Interdisciplinary Center for Life-Science and
Engineering Technion - Israel Institute of Technology Haifa, Israel,
32000
Tel: 972-4-8295834     
Fax: 972-4-8225153
Email: duvshani@tx.technion.ac.il