Top 10 Innovations: EMD Millipore’s CellASIC™ Platform Takes 6th Place with Live Cell Imaging and Precise Environment Control

Top 10 Innovations: EMD Millipore’s CellASIC™ Platform Takes 6th Place with Live Cell Imaging and Precise Environment Control

<0> EMD MilliporeGeoffrey Schwartz, +1 951 514 4223 </0>

, the Life Science division of of Darmstadt, Germany, today announced that its CellASIC™ ONIX Microfluidic Platform was ranked 6th among the top ten innovations of 2012 as determined by a panel of expert judges at magazine.

“We’re honored that has recognized the CellASIC™ platform as a game-changing technology, potentially enabling more predictive cell analysis,” said Philip Lee, Ph.D., co-founder of CellASIC Corporation (now part of EMD Millipore). “We look forward to working with our customers to make microfluidic cell culture the standard in research and drug discovery.”

Already adopted by laboratories around the world, CellASIC™ technology has given cell biologists unprecedented abilities to monitor responses to pre-programmed perfusion, temperature and gas environment changes in live cells. Using microfluidic perfusion to mimic environments, the CellASIC™ ONIX Platform automates all the necessary requirements for live cell imaging while maintaining optimal health of cells, even over several days.

The platform, which consists of a control system, microfluidic plates and software, is compatible with standard inverted microscopes. Application-specific microfluidic plates support mammalian, yeast or bacterial cells. Applications greatly facilitated by CellASIC™ technology include: 3D cell culture, dynamic primary neuron culture, cancer response to hypoxia, and host-pathogen interactions.

EMD Millipore is the Life Science division of Merck KGaA of Germany and offers a broad range of innovative, performance products, services and business relationships that enable our customers' success in research, development and production of biotech and pharmaceutical drug therapies. Through dedicated collaboration on new scientific and engineering insights, and as one of the top three R&D investors in the Life Science Tools industry, EMD Millipore serves as a strategic partner to customers and helps advance the promise of life science.

Headquartered in Billerica, Massachusetts, the division has around 10,000 employees, operations in 67 countries and 2010 revenues of $2.2 billion. EMD Millipore is known as Merck Millipore outside of the U.S. and Canada.

Note: Merck KGaA or Merck shall mean Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany

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Merck is a global pharmaceutical and chemical company with total revenues of € 10.3 billion in 2011, a history that began in 1668, and a future shaped by more than 40,000 employees in 67 countries. Its success is characterized by innovations from entrepreneurial employees. Merck's operating activities come under the umbrella of Merck KGaA, in which the Merck family holds an approximately 70% interest and shareholders own the remaining approximately 30%. In 1917 the U.S. subsidiary Merck & Co. was expropriated and has been an independent company ever since.