About a month ago Nidacon International AB had a vitrification workshop, the first of its kind for our company.

A mixture of embryologists and distributors took part in this workshop and it all worked out very well. Some of the participants found Sweden a bit too cold but fortunately enough we could save them with our beautiful Nidacon caps.

For the vitrification part we had help from Fertility Centre here in Gothenburg, the clinic that helped us to develop the vitrikit. They have used the product for several years now and are really the experts of the method.

Of course we also took the opportunity to show all our other products and had a hands-on session with them as well.

Organising this workshop was a very rewarding task and I know for sure that more workshops will come. It is a great way for us to meet our customers and for you to meet us.

 

For pictures from the workshop, click here and read the entry from January 20th.

 

Keep your eyes open for our next workshop!

 

Product Specialist

 

Ann-Sofie Forsberg

 

The meeting this year took place in Gent, Belgium, a historic city, yet at the same time a contemporary one. In Ghent, they live, work and enjoy life over and over again each day.

 

The meetings were very well organized and the standard on the lectures and in the parallel sessions was, as always, high. We met many interesting participants and have made many new friends.

 

A big thank you to the organisers!

 

 

Anna and Oscar

VitriBlast™ contains hSA and it is most likely that DMSO oxidizes hSA into dimers and/or oligomers since it has an oxidative effect and thereby creating disulfide bridges. The reaction is rather slow but, if DMSO and hSA exist together for a longer time, it is likely that these bonds are created.

 

Every hSA protein contains a free cystein which could be oxidized. hSA also contains several internal disulfide bridges which could be opened and reclosed at another position, or react with another hSA-molecule (tiol-disulfide exchange) due to the effect of DMSO. This could lead to a number of different combinations of hSA with an oligomer of hSA as the result.

 

Regardless of whether dimers or oligomers are created, hSA is changed to such a degree that it would not function properly as an excipient, since its tertiary structure is so different from native hSA.

 

In short: DMSO inhibits the function of hSA in the medium, although only if added to VitriBlast™ earlier than just prior to use.

 

 

References

 

Recovery and purification of highly aggregation-prone disulfide-containing peptides: Application to islet amyloid polypeptide

Andisheh Abedini, Gagandeep Singh a, Daniel P. Raleigh

Analytical Biochemistry 351 (2006) 181–186

 

SOLVATION EFFECTS IN HUMAN SERUM ALBUMIN RADIOLYSIS IN THE PRESENCE OF DIMETHYL SULFOXIDE

V. K. Pogorelyi, V. N. Barvinchenko,and V. V. Turov.

Teoreticheskaya i Eksperimental'naya Khimiya 26 ( 1988 ) 107-110. Translated January-February, 1990. Original article submitted August 18, 1988

Nidacon will attend the Middle East Fertility Society (MEFS) annual meeting in Cairo, November 4-7.

We are looking forward to meet our distributors and customers in the North Africa/Middle East Region.

For the opportunity to set up a meeting with us at the exhibition venue at Fairmont Heliopolis Hotel, please contact us via phone or e-mail prior to the meeting!

Anders and Oscar

We will also attend the Third Asia Pacific Forum on Andrology in Nanjing, China (10-14th of October, 2009). This will be the first time ever NidaCon attends this meeting and we are very much looking forward to it! If you want to meet us there please just contact us prior to the meeting and we will try to arrange something!

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Ann-Sofie and Magda

 

The meeting this year took place in Nyborg, Denmark, a beautiful little place near the beach by the Great Belt Bridge. We had a couple of sunny days with a lot of different activities, like team challenges and beach party.

It was however not all about being social; also as usual a very high standard on the lectures and in the parallel sessions there was something for everyone.

The final peak was the two opera singers at the last evening, excellent singers (and good looking). It will be hard for Sweden to top that next time.

Big applause to the Danish organisers.

 

Ann-Sofie and Oscar

Sun is actually shining over NidaCon today which is not always the case in our country during summer! The interest for our new products VitriBlast and ThermoBlast is increasing every day. It is so exciting!We believe we will have the most hectic autumn ever and we are looking forward to it!

We have worked hard to finalise films on instructions for use for our products and we are hoping this will be an effort worth while for our customers. We also have our new product manual where we have tried to collect all information on our product line in one place. Just contact us for your copy!

Take care and enjoy the season!

The "NidaCon team"

 

It was great seing everyone again! We return filled with new ideas and inspiration. Thank you all!

Ann-Sofie, Ewa, Magda, Anders, Oscar and Paul

We are not far from the next ESHRE meeting and we really look forward to seing you all! We will have candy, bags and a small competition every day (with an Ipod for the winner). Visit us at our stand! We will also launch a new product! Are you curious? Just yet another reason to visit our stand no 224-225! Hoping to see you there! Team NidaCon