April 2012

Lyostat is a freeze drying microscope that allows observation and recording of sample structure during freeze-drying. This enables collapse temperature to be determined, as well as observation of many other events such as crystallisation and the effects…

Cytotoxic drugs are used as part of a chemotherapy regime and form the bedrock of this form of cancer treatment.  Recently, their uses have expanded outside of the cancer envelope to treatment for certain skin conditions (e.g., psoriasis), the treatment…

March 2012

Later this month BTL will be attending the International Society of Lyophilization and Freeze-Drying (ISL-FD)’s 5th Annual Conference in Bologna, Italy.

The Society is a non-profit organization which aims to promote and advance the field of lyophilization. This…

Large quantities of donated blood is discarded due to stability issues. There is considerable value in achieving more stable material, and freeze-drying offers the opportunity of stabilising whole blood or blood components. However, the fragility of red blood cell membrane…

This presentation discusses some of the issues that arise with lyophilization in production, and how solutions can be found using scientific methodology.

Every product has a critical temperature below which it must be cooled for complete solidification, and it must be maintained below this point throughout primary drying to prevent processing defects. This presentation provides an introduction to what critical temperatures are,…

Applications of headspace moisture analysis for investigating the water dynamics within a sealed vial containing freeze dried material.

The moisture content of a freeze dried material has a direct effect on the glass transition of the material, which has implications…

Preservation of Probiotic Bacteria by freeze drying, and achieving stomach and bile acid resistance. This three-part study was funded by the UK’s Technology Strategy board and focused on fermentation, freeze drying, and delivery system. The aim was to produce stable…

A study of vial headspace moisture in an entire freeze dried batch and the factors affecting moisture content variability.

The moisture content of a freeze dried material has a direct effect on the glass transition of the material. In turn…

The freeze drying of cell-containing regenerative medicine products to enable long-term study. An initial study using mammalian red blood cells. While other factors have been successfully lyophilised, red blood cells present additional challenges such as a particularly fragile membrane.

Freeze drying microscopy is an established technique for studying the freeze drying formulations and identifying key thermal characteristics such as glass transition and collapse temperatures. This information is vital for process design to be carried out rationally and efficiently. This…

Freeze drying (lyophilisation) removes the solvent from a material in order to preserve it. Freeze drying has applications in the preservation of many materials including small molecules, foodstuffs, artefacts and whole organisms. this presentation provides a short introduction to this…

Lyotherm2 provides an integrated Differential Thermal Analyser (DTA) and newly-developed electrical impedance (Zsinφ) capability within one instrument. Lyotherm 2 has been designed to measure glass transition (Tg’), eutectic (Teu) and melting (Tm) temperatures relevant to freeze-drying formulations.**

This short presentation…