-- 2009 Creativity Awards Program Recipients Plan to Use their Accuri C6 Flow Cytometer(R) Systems for Diverse Applications --

-- Studies Range from the Growth Physiology of Microbes in Ocean Systems to Measurement of Intracellular Calcium in Mammalian Nerve Cells --

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Dec. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Accuri Cytometers Inc., a life sciences company developing revolutionary bench-top flow cytometer systems, today announced the 2009 recipients of its Accuri Flow Cytometer Creativity Awards program, which provides a free Accuri C6 Flow Cytometer® System each year to two sets of researchers, one in the U.S. and one in Europe, who propose innovative uses of flow cytometry. Explicitly designed for routine use by biomedical researchers in their own labs, Accuri's flow cytometer is a full-featured bench-top cell analysis system that provides powerful capabilities similar to industry-leading flow cytometers in a more user-friendly format and at a fraction of the cost.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20091208/NY22568-a )

The 2009 Accuri Flow Cytometer Creativity Award winners include research teams at the University of Southern Mississippi, Stennis Space Center, MS USA and University College Dublin, Ireland. Accuri's Creativity Awards program was created to foster innovative research that taps the unrealized potential of flow cytometry and expands its use to novel applications.

"A key driver behind the development of the Accuri C6 system was our belief that the full scientific potential of flow cytometry has been hampered by its lack of wide accessibility," said Jack Ball, Chief Commercial Officer at Accuri. "The diverse and imaginative responses submitted to our Awards program provide concrete evidence that flow cytometry is applicable to a wide range of biological research topics, and they demonstrate in tangible ways how the Accuri C6 Flow Cytometer System can help unleash the full potential of flow cytometry for research that was not previously accessible."

Accuri designed the C6 system from the ground up with input from hundreds of researchers. Accuri's innovations, coupled with its state-of-the-art components, resulted in a cytometer that is powerful, robust, compact, easy-to-use and very affordable, at less than one-third the price of current market-leading flow cytometers and one-tenth the operating costs of the market leaders over five years of ownership.

Award winners Dr. Karen M. Orcutt and Dr. Kjell Gundersen of the Department of Marine Science at the University of Southern Mississippi will use their C6 Flow Cytometer System in combination with quantum dot technology to detect the growth physiology of phytoplankton cells to better understand the nitrogen cycle in the Northern Gulf of Mexico. Dr. Orcutt noted, "This new application of the Accuri C6 cytometer has the potential to be transformative in the way we study microbial cells in ocean systems. Flow cytometry offers researchers the opportunity to explore novel aspects of the molecular biology of organisms in aquatic systems, and since the C6 system is small and portable enough to transport to the site for field work, it is especially valuable for marine science applications."

The European winners, Dr. Alice Vines, Dr. Gethin McBean and Dr. Alfonso Blanco Fernandez of the School of Biomolecular & Biomedical Science at University College Dublin in Ireland, plan to use their C6 system for continuous measurement of intracellular calcium concentrations. "We believe the C6 system can help address the challenges researchers have faced in monitoring rapid intracellular calcium concentration changes in mammalian cells," said Dr. Blanco Fernandez. "Calcium concentration regulates a wide range of essential cell functions that affect processes such as nerve conduction and muscle contraction. A major challenge in intracellular calcium analysis has been achieving measurements within the very fast time frame in which concentrations change - in the nervous system, responses occur within nanoseconds. The C6 system allows us to continuously monitor calcium concentrations, eliminating the problem of achieving these measurements in the short time frame available. We believe the more accurate and precise monitoring made possible with the C6 system could provide important insights into these essential cellular processes."

Jennifer Baird, Accuri President and CEO, commented, "We are delighted to announce our 2009 Accuri Flow Cytometer Creativity Awards winners. Our goal with this program is to promote the expansion of cell-based analysis and to enable innovative research in an even wider variety of disciplines. The versatility and power of our system is illustrated in these teams' imaginative and varied research proposals. We congratulate the two teams and look forward to seeing the fruits of their research, as well as many more proposals for novel uses from researchers around the globe."

About Accuri Cytometers

Accuri Cytometers, Inc. is a life sciences company developing and marketing revolutionary high performance cell analysis systems designed to bring the power of flow cytometry into the labs of life science researchers everywhere. Reflecting the input of hundreds of researchers, the Accuri C6 Flow Cytometer® is a full-featured bench-top cell and bead analysis system that provides similar capabilities to those of industry-leading flow cytometers in an easy-to-use format and at a fraction of their cost. The Accuri system was engineered from the start to be compact, powerful and user-friendly, while also being affordable by most research laboratories. The Accuri CSampler(TM) adds simple, reliable and user-friendly automation to the Accuri C6 Flow Cytometer System. For more information, please visit www.accuricytometers.com.

For additional information, contact:
Accuri Cytometers                         Media
Jack Ball                                 GendeLLindheim BioCom Partners
Chief Commercial Officer                  Barbara Lindheim
(734) 994-8000                            (212) 918-4650

SOURCE Accuri Cytometers, Inc.

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