Letter From The President

Several years ago, in collaboration with the Yale University School of Medicine, Weiss Enterprises Inc. developed a colony counting system for mammalian cell colonies. The system, used in cancer research, provided accurate and consistent results while saving countless hours of human drudgery. Since 1993, the system has been in continuous use analyzing hundreds of petri dishes per month.

The system uses a unique algorithm that can accurately count colonies of various size and density, and can separate and count large clumps of colonies.

In addition to mammalian colonies, the algorithm is used to count bacterial colonies in the food processing industry. It's effectiveness was proven analyzing track etch pits in neutron radiation measurements, and the position of tiny bubbles located in a bubble chamber.

The Yale system uses 60 mm petri dishes and counts colonies that have been stained with methylene blue or crystal violet. It images the dishes with a low cost desktop scanner and can handle eight dishes in a single operation. The system could handle four 90 mm plates in a single operation.

We now offer the system, in a simple and low cost version, to the scientific community. The system uses any desk top scanner that is TWAIN compliant (most recent ones are), and an IBM compatible PC under Windows 2000, XP and Vista. To offer the system at a low cost, we ask you to obtain these items yourself; we supply only the software and some simple fixtures.

Download the demonstration system and try it. Then give us a call. We can offer a useful counting system.

Sincerely,
Marvin Weiss