Acquisition of a liquid scintillation counter

许多重要的生物过程都与DNA、RNA和蛋白质的相互作用直接相关。这些相互作用中的大多数需要监测非常小浓度的材料，通常在皮摩尔（10-12摩尔）数量级。广泛的荧光方法用于监测生物化学相互作用。然而，这种基于荧光的测量不提供在涉及以非常低浓度发现的化合物的大多数生化测定中仍然需要的灵敏度和易用性。当使用放射性标记技术时，这种限制不存在，有效地允许测量以皮摩尔浓度存在的许多物质。有趣的是，放射性标记的非侵入性性质在所研究的系统中引入了最小的扰动。此外，除了在任何模型系统中检测大量生物分子的存在之外，放射性标记的使用已经允许开发非常强大的实验技术，由此采用双标记来同时检测和区分两种感兴趣的化合物。放射性标记的使用还允许开发脉冲追踪方法，以监测物质在合成后的不同时间在相关化合物的复杂混合物中的变化。虽然这些检测涉及不同的系统，但它们都依赖于放射性标记的精确检测，而放射性标记是这些技术的基本组成部分。因此，至关重要的是，我们的部门能够获得高性能闪烁计数器，使我们能够准确地定量放射性标记。

Many important biological processes are directly related to interactions involving DNA, RNA and proteins. Most of these interactions require to monitor very small concentrations of materials, often in the picomolar (10-12 molar) order of magnitude. A wide array of fluorescent approaches is employed to monitor biochemical interactions. However, such fluorescence-based measurements do not provide the sensitivity and ease of use that are still required in a large majority of biochemical assays involving compounds found in very low concentrations. Such limitation is not present when using radiolabeling technology, effectively allowing the measurement of many substances occurring in picomolar concentrations. Interestingly, the non-invasive nature of radiolabels introduces minimal perturbations in studied systems. Furthermore, in addition to detecting the presence of a large array of biological molecules in any model system, the use of radiolabelling has allowed the development of very powerful experimental techniques whereby dual labels are employed to simultaneously detect and distinguish two compounds of interest. The use of radiolabelling has also permitted to develop pulse-chase methods to monitor a substance at various time after its synthesis among a complex mixture of related compounds. Although these assays involve different systems, they nevertheless all depend on the precise detection of radiolabels, which are essential components of these techniques. It is thus vital that our department has access to a high performance scintillation counter allowing us to accurately quantify radiolabels.