Download 2023.1

We are excited to announce heliOS 2023.1.  

After the launch of our new RT-IC technology, heliOS 2023.1 brings new features to expand its support for RT-IC assays. The overview for the RT-IC analysis has been improved, and two new RT-IC focused operations have been added to the manual analysis. 

Furthermore, we are introducing value generators to accelerate the configuration of custom assays. The added value generators represent the first step towards expanding the usability of custom assays. 

As usual, this release includes improvements, which aim to increase the usability of heliOS. 

RT-IC automated analyses  

Each Kinetics Analysis within the “Specifics” tab now contains a button that enables the “Quality Control View”. The “Quality Control View” provides access to the raw calibration data as well as a plot of the analyzed data in its raw, normalized, and referenced state. 

Composed Methods  

To simplify the maintenance of composed methods with many parameters, we added search bars to filter method and element parameters effectively. Furthermore, selecting elements within a composed method hides the parameters of unselected elements. 

To easier identify the composed method’s element a parameter belongs to, hovering over a parameter now highlights its element. 

Assay run generators

It is now easier to create custom assays with run containing parameter value patterns. Particularly, generating concentration series with blanks is now significantly easier. For this, new commands are available within the header of each column of the parameter table. 

To generate a concentration series, you can use the “Overwrite runs” command, which will open a dialog within which you can specify the maximum concentration, a division factor, and the number and order of concentrations to generate. 

!CAUTION! — generating a concentration series will replace all existing runs with the newly generated series. Please consider using it before setting up any other runs within your assay. 

After the concentration series, we can add blanks using the “Add runs” command. The dialog for adding runs requires a constant value and a specification to determine where the new runs are to be added with respect to the already existing runs. 

Plot improvements 

It is now easier to select multiple curves from the plot legend using the [CTRL] key to select multiple traces or the [SHIFT] key to select a whole range. Use this to create gradients or uniformly colored traces with ease. 

Especially relevant for RT-IC applications, you can now directly jump from a plot to the images that were recorded within the timeframe of the displayed traces. Use the context menu option “Show related images” to jump to the images of the experiment. The images are automatically filtered to the timeframe of the plotted data. To remove the filter, click on the “Filtered” indicator on the top left.  

Manual analyses operations 

We have introduced two new operations to the manual analysis, “Order curves” and “Jump Removal“. 

“Order curves” is our newest “Standard Operation” that can be used to sort curves by any metadata entry. The curves may be sorted in ascending or descending order. 

“Jump removal” is our newest “Smart Operation”. It was particularly designed to remove jump artifacts from traces recorded during RT-IC measurement. To remove a jump, you need to determine the index of the point before the jump and provide the index (or indexes, if multiple jumps are to be removed) to the corresponding curve (curves are displayed top to bottom chronologically).  

The jump(s) can be removed in two ways, “Absolute” or “Relative”. The selection depends on the suspected source of the jump. If the jump is due to a static fluorescence source (e.g., a fluorescence dust particle), the “Absolute” mode is appropriate. If the jump is suspected to origin from additional active binding sites (e.g., an additional cell), the “Relative” mode must be selected. 

The jump removal may also be applied to subsequent measurements within the same analysis pipeline. For this set, the “Carryover Mode” to “Carryover”. In this mode, the jump removal is forwarded to subsequent curves, ensuring a consistency throughout the analyzed dataset.