Institute Jean Godinot and Guava Technologies Demonstrate Superiority of Micro-capillary Cytometry for Monitoring Dendritic Cell Cultures for Cellular Immunology Research and Therapeutic Applications.

Business Editors/Health/Medical Writers

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HAYWARD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 16, 2003

Collaborative research between scientists at the Institute Jean Godinot in Reims, France and Guava Technologies, Inc. demonstrates the superiority of the Guava PCA cell analysis systems over standard microscopic methods for monitoring dendritic cells for research and therapeutic applications, Guava Technologies today announced. The Guava PCA, which employs micro-capillary cytometry technology to bring the power of flow cytometry to the laboratory benchtop, consistently demonstrated less user variability and greater reproducibility in achieving dendritic cell counts and viability assessments than did widely used trypan blue staining methods. Moreover, the Guava PCA system enabled users to complete their cell assessments more quickly and easily than those time-consuming and tedious manual microscopy methods, which currently represent a "gold standard" method for cellular immunology research.

Jacky Bernard, Ph.D. and Anne-Laure Millard, Ph.D. of the Institut Jean Godinot recently presented their research, entitled "Applications for Cell Culture Therapy Research and Dendritic Cells Analysis" at a seminar at the Institut Gustave Roussy, Paris, France, hosted by Dr. Laurence Zitvogel and Ozyme. Drs. Bernard and Millard investigated the Guava PCA as a potentially better way to monitor and study dendritic cells, rare immune system cells that play a key role in priming the body to fight cancer and other diseases. Dendritic cells are of great interest not only for scientists studying the immune system response, but also as potential new avenues to the treatment of cancer and other diseases.

A copy of a paper by Drs. Bernard and Millard, detailing their research with the Guava PCA, will be available later in 2003 at the Guava Technologies website at www.guavatechnologies.com.

"Achieving accurate cell counts and viability assessments of dendritic cells presents special challenges for researchers because dendritic cells are difficult to culture, do not produce homogeneous cultures, and are subject to physiological changes in appearance in response to changes in their environment," said Dr. Bernard. "Thus tedious, highly subjective, manual microscopic methods of cell assessment are subject to great variability and lack of reproducibility, especially between different users or when only low numbers of cells are available for counting.

In contrast, we demonstrate that the Guava PCA produced significantly lower variability in measurements and a superior ability to distinguish between viable and dead cells, even in mixed cell cultures or cultures with low concentrations of dendritic cells."

The Guava PCA-96 and Guava PCA cell analysis systems simplify cell analysis and biological research by providing powerful benchtop systems that scientists in the lab can use with less than one day of training. Moreover, these systems require only a small number of cells for accurate results compared to traditional cell analysis methods. Both the Guava PCA-96 and Guava PCA are flexible, highly affordable and compact, providing high-content read outs from a single microplate well or tube, right at the benchtop. This gives researchers comprehensive test results fast, streamlining the entire R&D and drug discovery process.

About Guava Technologies

Based in Hayward, Calif., Guava Technologies is a biotechnology company that develops, manufactures and markets patented, integrated cellular analysis systems for the life science researcher's benchtop. The company is revolutionizing the way that cell culture monitoring and cell screening assays are performed, by providing compact micro-volume scale systems that make common assays in cell-based analysis accessible at the benchtop. Guava's products have broad applications to life sciences research, drug discovery and biopharmaceutical production today, but also offer potential for use in clinical testing and blood processing, as well as other areas where single cell analysis is important. More information about the company and its products is available at www.guavatechnologies.com.

Guava is a registered trademark of Guava Technologies, Inc. PCA and PCA-96 are trademarks of Guava Technologies, Inc.