The Island of South Georgia

The island of South Georgia, an inhospitable frozen wasteland of glaciers, snow-capped mountains and freezing winds, lies in the southern Atlantic Ocean east of Tierra del Fuego.

This remote Antarctic island is part of the British territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The British claim to sovereignty of South Georgia dates from 1775 when Captain Cook landed here and dismissed the island as not worth discovering. Argentina also claimed the island in 1027, an unresolved dispute which contributed to the 1982 Falklands war when Argentine forces briefly occupied South Georgia.

In 1916 Ernest Shackleton became stranded on Elephant Island to the south-west, while on his Imperial Straits Antarctic Expedition, Shackleton and a small group of men left the rest of the party to summon help and ended up, after an arduous journey, at King Haakon Bay on the south coast of South Georgia.

They then managed to make it overland to reach help at Stromness whaling station, which led to the rescue of the remaining men. Daring a later expedition in 1922, Shackleton died on board a ship off South Georgia and he is buried on the island at Grytviken.

There is no permanent human population on South Georgia, only the British Government Officer, research scientists and museum staff at Grytviken, but there are enormous populations of penguins, the largest colonies anywhere on earth, with around 400,000 breeding pairs of king penguins, two million pairs of the macaroni penguins and large colonies of four other species.

Visitors come here to watch penguin couples overcome the extreme climatic conditions and nurture their precious eggs through hatching and the vulnerable chick stage into fully fledged members of the colony. The charming creatures work tirelessly together avoiding the seals that lurk in the shallows waiting to pounce and protecting their young from ferocious skua gulls who will snatch one and tear it to shreds.

When he landed here in the 18th century, Captain Cook noted the huge seal and whale populations around the island, but just two hundred years later both had been hunted nearly to extinction. South Georgia is, however, home to 95 per cent of the world’s southern fur seals, half the southern elephant seals, 250,000 Albatrosses, including the massive Wandering Albatross, and up to ten million other seabirds, making a trip here a totally unique experience.

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Development of a Clinical Research Facility

Quintiles Transnational Corp. announced that they will be opening an extended regional facility for the purposes of further improving their service offerings throughout European countries. The new facility will be purpose-built, with three buildings unified into a single modernised complex three located close to Edinburgh, Scotland.

The 115,000 square foot research and development center will be situated inside the Alba Campus close to Edinburgh and will have room for up to five hundred staff, covering departments associated with Quintiles’ Clinical Development Services, such as Project Management, Data Management and Regulatory Affairs. The site shall be BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment Method) certified for sustainable design and minimal environmental impact.

The main attraction of the new site will be an 80,000 square ft centralised laboratory almost twice its previous capacity which will increase throughput of clinical trial samples and enable the ability to process almost 3 times more kits per day. It has been strategically situated to supply the whole European region where on-site laboratory services include urinalysis, serology markers, coagulation, hematology, specimen management, endocrinology, chemistry and biomarkers.

In order to capitalise on scientific advances, the site comprises of one of Quintiles’ three Assay Development Laboratories, specifically focused on technical transfer of methods and assays, as well as validation of industry-specific instruments and assays for research.

Quintiles, along with other clinical research organisations based in the United Kingdom, boast vast centralised lab networks with bases in India, China, Japan, Singapore, South Africa, Brazil and Argentina.

These CROs supply key laboratory services to a number of continents and in doing so, are able to lower transportation costs, minimising worries about import/export permits and providing local study assessment support, in turn boosting sample stability.

RPL, another well-known CRO or Institute of Clinical Pharmacology based in the UK (drug trial provider) who offers specialist services like CRF Design, also boasts in-house laboratories, with sites located at two acute London-based teaching hospitals, namely Mayday University Hospital and St George’s University of London. These laboratories are operated 24 hours a day by fully trained staff and are readily available to for immediate sample processing needs. Its labs comprise of refrigerated centrifuges for processing samples; refrigerators as well as -20°C and -80°C freezers for sample storage, of which are linked to an alarm system where temperatures are constantly monitored. Labs also comprise state-of-the-art, fully automated Drugs of Abuse, (DOA), analysers, supplying fast and accurate DOA results.

*** You must consult your doctor before taking any medical advice!