© 1998 by Oxford University Press
The race to isolate single cells for genetic and molecular analysis has grown contentious, with a rift as broad as the Atlantic and as thin as a laser beam separating the three competitors. A technology developed at the National Institutes of Health, called laser capture microdissection (see News, Dec. 4, 1996), dominates the small, but growing, United States market. However, two other companies -- one in Germany and the other also in the United States -- are actively criticizing the NIH system and proffering their own as superior.
So far, the stakes are relatively small. The companies each report worldwide sales of only 40 to 100 instruments, which wed lasers to microscopes and zap small groups of cells into test tubes. But within a decade, the expectation is that these instruments will work their way out of the How to Slice It? Tissue Technologies Vie for Potentially Lucrative Market