History of Spearlab Foam Dewars
Our durable foam dewars were developed at the Advanced Light Source, a synchrotron facility of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The Lawrence Berkeley Lab is operated by the University of California, and receives federal funding from the Department of Energy.
The first application of these vessels was for the transfer and processing of cryogenic samples for x-ray crystallography measurements. The foam vessels addressed the safety and performance problems inherent in low profile glass Dewar flasks. Filled with liquid nitrogen, such glass Dewar flasks are difficult to handle, and they shatter when dropped. This poses a serious hazard to personnel and equipment. Such accidents at LBNL have caused thousands of dollars of equipment damage, along with lost weeks of valuable research time.
In contrast, the patented (U.S. pat. no. 7,971,744) design of our foam dewar makes it easier to handle and safer to use than a traditional low profile glass Dewar. Also, because of its lower thermal mass, a foam vessel will cause less liquid nitrogen boiloff when it is filled. Additionally, it accumulates less frost during regular use, which can be a major problem with crystallography samples. With a foam dewar, less LN is consumed, and research proceeds more effectively.
Spearlab foam dewars have gained international acceptance as the preferred vessel for crystallography sample processing and transfer, being used in hundreds of laboratories worldwide. Our foam dewars also can be used in many other fields of research, industry, or education. If you have an application that involves cryogenics, please tell us your particular needs, so that we may help you to engineer a solution.
-Jonathan D. Spear, Director
Our cryogenic vessels are an inexpensive means to improve the safety and performance of your laboratory.
Users of Spearlab foam dewars include the following highly regarded organizations:
- Scripps Research Institute
- The Molecular Biology Consortium
- Salk Institute
- Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
- UC Irvine
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- Genentech
- Argonne National Laboratory
- Cornell University
- Sunesis
- Case Western Reserve University
- CBR Institute for Biomedical Research (Harvard University)
- Pfizer
- University of Georgia
- Novartis
- La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology
- Gilead
- Merck Pharmaceuticals
- Brookhaven National Laboratory
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute (Yale University)
- Brown University
- UCLA
- Purdue University
- Western University of Health Sciences
- University of Illinois at Chicago
- Amgen
- Princeton University
- University of Michigan
- NC State University
- University of California Berkeley
- Harvard Medical School
- St. Vincent’s Institute (Australia)
- Mayo Clinic
- Northwestern University
- University of Cincinnati
- Biogen IDEC
- University of Wisconsin
- Children’s Hospital (Boston)
- Schering-Plough
- University of Manitoba (Canada)
- Australian Synchrotron Project
- University of Massachusetts
- University of Sydney (Australia)
- Louisiana State University
- Johnson & Johnson
- Rutgers University
- Glaxo Smith Kline
- University of Georgia
- Celgene / Sigma Pharmaceutical
- University of Washington
- The Ohio State University
- Rigaku America
- UC San Francisco
- University of Toledo
- UC Santa Barbara
- University of Pennsylvania
- Exelixis
- Cal State University Fullerton
- University of North Carolina
- Teledyne
- University of Toronto (Canada)
- deCODE
- Genzyme
- University of Copenhagen (Denmark)
- Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (Australia)
- JEOL
- Medical Research Council (U.K.)
- C.S.I.R.O. (Australia)
- Fisher Scientific
- University of Oxford (U.K.)
- Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
- University of Illinois at Chicago
- Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel)
- University of Adelaide (Australia)
- National Institute of Standards and Technology
- Paul Scherrer Institut (Switzerland)
- Illinois Institute of Technology
- Johns Hopkins University
- University of Alberta (Canada)
- Swarthmore College
- Memorial Sloane Kettering Cancer Center
- University of Minnesota
- Universitat Bern (Switzerland)
- California Polytechnical State University, San Luis Obispo
- Rosalind Franklin University
- North Carolina State University
- Genencor
- Vanderbilt University
- Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University
- Diamond Light Source (U.K.)
- Iowa State University
- Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (Canada)
- Columbia Medical Center
- Southwest Research Institute
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Columbia University
- Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
- Isoprime Ltd. (U.K.)
- IRELEC (France)
- University of Alabama
- UC San Diego
- California Institute of Technology
- Indiana University
- Washington University in St. Louis
- McMaster University (Canada)
- University of Maryland
- Vassar College
- Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste (Italy)
- Brentwood Biomedical Research Institute
- National University of Singapore
- Colorado State University
- Duke University
- Bruker AXS
- Brandeis University
- Rockefeller University
- Industrial Research Ltd. (New Zealand)
- New York University
- UT Austin
- Western University of Health Sciences
- UC Santa Cruz
- Micromeritics
- Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (Panama)
- Shanghai Waygen Bio-Tech, Inc. (China)
- Southern Cross University (Australia)
- Dana Farber Cancer Institute
- Mt. Sinai School of Medicine
- Tekalia Aeronautik (Canada)
- Zacharon Pharmaceuticals
- Phillips Medical Systems
- University of Colorado Denver
- Longevity Biotech
- York University (U.K.)
- Pennsylvania State University
- University of Wollongong (Australia)
- Takeda Pharmaceutical Company
- College of Wooster
- Aberdeen Proving Ground
- Western Washington University
- Grupo Arqueologia de Mendoza (Argentina)
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory – Battelle
- University of Arizona
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory
- New York Structural Biology Center
- Humboldt State University
- State University of New York – Brockport
- General Electric
- Virginia Commonwealth University
- Texas A & M University
- European Synchrotron Facility (France)
- University of Innsbruck (Austria)
- EMD Serono Research Center
- Dupont Industrial Biosciences
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (Australia)
- University of Oklahoma
- Carnegie Mellon University
- University of Nebraska – Lincoln