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| R&D Award for Carl Zeiss |
| PlasDIC – the innovative relief contrast for routine microscopy awarded the "Oscar of Inventions" | Downloads and Links | ||
| Carl Zeiss Microscopy receives third R&D 100 Award in a row. | RTF Documents
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| MORRIS PLAINS/New Jersey/USA, 20.07.2004. Once again, another Carl Zeiss Microscopy product is a winner of the much coveted R&D 100 Award granted every year by R&D Magazine: PlasDic, the first differential interference contrast technique allowing the use of low-cost plastic slides without any loss of information. With a monthly circulation of 90,000, the US magazine presents this award to the 100 most important technical products launched worldwide. The innovative PlasDIC relief contrast is a low cost and easy-to-use technique, i.e. it is ideal for the routine observation of living cells or the micromanipulation of cells on the microscope, e.g. intracytoplasmatic sperm injection. Typical application areas are cell biology and molecular biology laboratories at universities, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals or institutes of reproductive medicine. PlasDIC is the first polarization-optical differential interference contrast technique that is independent of undesired optical anisotropies (caused by strain or natural birefringence, for example) of the condenser, microscope slide, specimen and objective. This enables the use of plastic Petri dishes enabling improved cell growth at the dish bottom. PlasDIC provides better depth of focus than conventional differential interference contrast, i.e. both thin and thick objects can be clearly seen at a single glance – particularly important for in-vitro fertilization. It is a very easy-to-use technique and prevents careless wrong settings of the microscope. The costs to the user are moderate. Both the Axiovert 40 and the Axiovert 200 require neither a special condenser nor a condenser prism. Furthermore, it is possible to use standard objectives. PlasDIC simply requires a coherence diaphragm for the condenser, LD A-Plan objectives, a PlasDIC slider and an analyzer. Dr. Ulrich Simon, Executive Vice President & General Manager of the Microscopy Group, considers the renewed bestowal of the award as confirmation of the company's innovation strategy: "Particularly in the field of cutting-edge research, the Microscopy Group has succeeded in consolidating its leading market position with innovative products such as the LSM 510 META, the ApoTome and the PlasDIC technique. Therefore, we make accordingly high investments in our future, in new technologies and in production capacities. An elaborate strategy and a well-trained and efficient marketing and consulting team will enable us to continue the success story of the Carl Zeiss Microscopy Group. Our goal: to provide our customers with tools that enable them to perform their tasks more quickly, efficiently and successfully." During FY 2002/03, the Microscopy Group generated revenue of EUR 295 million. The PlasDIC technique is the 12th R&D 100 Award for the Microscopy Group, and third consecutive, following the LSM 510 META Laser Scanning Microscope and the ApoTome fluorescence microscopy technique. The award will be presented in Chicago in October 2004.  Photo: Human epithelium cells from the mucous membrane of the mouth, prepared in a plastic Petri dish. The loss of information in conventional differential interference contrast (left), caused by anisotropy of the microscope slide material, is clearly visible. The image contrast achieved with PlasDIC (right) is brilliant despite the same microscope slide material. The PlasDIC polarization-optical differential interference contrast technique is one of this year's winners of the renowned R&D 100 Award from R&D Magazine. Gudrun Vogel Carl Zeiss Jena GmbH Press Officer Microscopes and Systems, Optical Systems and Components Phone: +49 3641 64-2770 Fax: +49 3641 64-2941 E-Mail: 
g.vogel@zeiss.deCarl Zeiss AG Lichtmikroskopie Postfach 4041 37030 Göttingen Rainer Danz Tel.: +49 551 5060 368 Fax: +49 551 5060 574 Email: danz@zeiss.de Number: J18/04 MI Number of Words: 552 Number of Characters: 3960 |
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