R&D magazine have announced Oxford Diffraction's Xcalibur PX Ultra protein crystallography system as one of 2004's top 100 technologically significant new products and winner of the prestigious ‘R&D 100’ award.

R&D magazine have announced Oxford Diffraction's Xcalibur PX Ultra protein crystallography system as one of 2004's top 100 technologically significant new products and winner of the prestigious‘R&D 100’award.

Launched in 2003 by the UK-based company Oxford Diffraction Limited, Xcalibur PX Ultra is a new breed of compact X-ray protein crystallography system for the home laboratory, providing comparable results to a 5 kW rotating anode and image plate (with multilayer optics) but with virtually no maintenance. Xcalibur PX Ultra can be used for a wide variety of applications including crystal screening prior to synchrotron visits, in-house structure solution, weak crystals, large unit cells, and small crystals. Xcalibur PX Ultra is a turn-key system and consists of the 165 mm diameter Onyx CCD detector and the hi-flux Enhance Ultra X-ray source mounted on a 4-circle kappa goniometer. The innovative Enhance Ultra X-ray source is based around a sealed tube combined with state-of-the-art multilayer optics; it provides a finely focussed X-ray beam of 300 micron diameter and runs off a standard 3kW rack-mounted generator. With no moving parts, Enhance Ultra is an extremely reliable and low maintenance source with only a fraction of the cost of ownership of a rotating anode. Since its launch Xcalibur PX Ultra has been installed and is successfully operating in a large number of sites in Europe and North America.

Dr Damian Kucharczyk, Head of Research and Development at Oxford Diffraction said “The Xcalibur PX Ultra has proved to be an extremely successful product, making protein crystallography more affordable and technically easier. This has opened the field to a much wider number of researchers who have been excluded by the maintenance and expense of existing x-ray systems. We are very pleased to have the Xcalibur PX Ultra product recognised by such a prestigious award”.

The R&D 100 awards, from R&D magazine were first awarded 42 years ago and were designed to highlight the 100 most technologically significant new products of each year. Originally known as the I-R 100s, in keeping with the original name of the magazine, Industrial Research, entries for the award are judged by at least 60 outside experts drawn from unbiased professional consultants, university faculty, and industrial researchers with superior expertise and experience in the areas being judged. The winning of an‘R&D 100’Award provides a mark of excellence seen by industry, government, and academia as proof that the product is one of the most innovative ideas of the year. The products entered for the award must have been available for sale or licensing during the calendar year preceding the judging.

Over the years, the‘R&D 100’Awards have recognized winning products with such household names as Polacolor film (1963), the flashcube (1965), the automated teller machine (1973), the halogen lamp (1974), the fax machine (1975), the liquid crystal display (1980), the printer (1986), the Kodak Photo CD (1991), the Nicoderm antismoking patch (1992), Taxol anticancer drug (1993), lab on a chip (1996), and HDTV (1998).