Ken,
If you get many replies to yourself rather than to the mailbase, I'd be
interested in a summary of the suggestions or conclusions. A lot of us are
about to encounter this problem, in our case with the Cobas Fara (perhaps
the best clinical chemistry analyser ever?).
Our current strategy is to buy up stocks of spare parts and use another
source for consumables until other people have found other ways to do the
problem assays (particularly B vitamins by enzyme activity). This is
undoubtedly the cowards' way out! We have vaguely thought about using a
Roche 917 if we move our high-throughput tests to a Modular, or else switch
from enzymatic B vitamins to an HPLC measurement of thiamine and
pyridoxine.
I'd be interested in hearing from people who do B vitamins by measuring the
compounds themselves rather than the effects on enzyme activity. To those
who say it's not worth measuring them at all, I sympathise with this point
of view but it's not the current issue.
John Whitfield
Clinical Biochemistry
Royal Prince Alfred Hospital
Sydney, Australia
Phone (+61) 2 9515 5246
Fax (+61) 2 9515 7931
-----Original Message-----
From: Robertson, Ken [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, 30 November 2000 18:16
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Seeking advice re possible replacement instrument
I suspect that this has been asked many times before but I would
appreciate
peoples' thoughts. I am told that the Cobas Mira is not going to
receive
complete support in Australia in the future. This may involve us in
looking
at replacement instruments. Could I please seek the list members'
opinions
re possible replacement options? Our preference would be for an open
instrument which is random access, where you can use a range of
reagents,
and where you can get access to raw absorbance data for working up
assays.
Ideally it shouldn't cost an arm and a leg but ..........
If anyone has any alternatives which they have gone for, or even
just
heard
about, I would appreciate hearing from them. We suspect that there
may be a
number of instruments on the market in other countries which have
had
minimal exposure in Australia.
It may be preferable to contact me directly rather than bother all
the
other list members. Either of these email addresses is fine:-
[log in to unmask]
OR
[log in to unmask]
With thanks in advance,
Regards, Ken
Ken Robertson
Senior Scientist I/C,
Laboratory Management Unit,
Royal Perth Hospital,
Western Australia.
Ph: +61 8 9224 2968
Fax: +61 8 9224 3466
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