The Web is an excellent information resource on reagents, instruments, and other products for the laboratory. Several Web sites provide searchable product compendiums from different companies. Many individual firms also produce their own informative Web sites.

BioSupplyNet from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is the longest-standing compendium of biosupply information on the Web. It is targeted at researchers in the basic biological sciences. BioSupplyNet's motto is "You Research Science, We Research the Supplies." The site includes 2,700 suppliers and 15,000 products. You can search or browse through suppliers, products, or product categories. BioSupplyNet gives easy access to biosupply information and direct links to biosupply companies. Two good features are the "See the Latest" and "Get a Deal" sections. BioSupplyNet forwards you directly to the supplier's home page for purchases. For novice users, the wordy toolbar may make navigation of the BioSupplyNet site slightly confusing. A new addition to the site is the BioToolKit, a collection of links for research biologists. Access to BioSupplyNet is free of charge.

SciQuest is a snazzy, professional site aiming "to streamline the purchasing and communication processes among scientists, buyers, and vendors." SciQuest covers a broad scope of products, including supplies used in all areas of science, not just biology. SciQuest's major feature is a search engine that combs through over 10,000 suppliers and over 150,000 products. SciQuest is designed to search for vendors of specific products. But SciQuest's broad scope may be frustrating to biological scientists looking for quick information or for biosuppliers' home pages. SciQuest has also developed the SciMail system, which forwards email directly to the relevant vendor addresses. Access to SciQuest is free.

Anderson's Timesaving Comparative Guides (ATCG) is "a comprehensive listing of antibodies, enzymes, chemicals, commercial libraries, and more." Biological scientists can use the site to search for a reagent, compare information from different suppliers, and then place a direct order. One can search for a particular product or browse through product categories. ATCG lists over 120 suppliers. Subscriptions to ATCG are available to individuals, laboratories, and institutions via the PointCast Network. Individual user registration and limited guest access is free of charge. However, only registered U.S. users can view U.S. list prices. ATCG is well organized and easy to use, although direct links to suppliers are buried beneath several levels. ATCG's major use appears to be as an order placement service for labs and institutions, for which ATCG charges a monthly fee. ATCG is currently compiling a rated collection of useful links for bioscientists.

The Scientist's LabConsumer is an extensive compendium of product information. The LabConsumer resource discusses materials and equipment used for research and development in biological science. LabConsumer contrasts and compares a wide range of reagents, supplies, and instruments used in the laboratory. LabConsumer also details newly available commercial products. LabConsumer articles are written by qualified science writers who thoroughly research the products and communicate with both users and suppliers. LabConsumer provides much useful information, and handy charts make viewing data collections easy. LabConsumer is published biweekly as a subsection of The Scientist. LabConsumer is archived at The Scientist's Web site, and access is free.

Most commercial biosupply sites are set up like online brochures that include product descriptions and contact information. These sites are useful when looking for products or when planning to order. However, some commercial biosupply Web sites have invested significant time and effort into building useful online resources. These sites can provide technical information, protocols, online ordering, and even discussion forums and order tracking.

Millipore manufactures a variety of purification products used in life science laboratories and biopharmaceuticals. Millipore developed the first online biosupply catalog in collaboration with Johns Hopkins Bioinformatics. Using the searchable catalog, you can fill out a form for a price quote and receive the answer via email. The Millipore Web site also provides technical and applications information and an order tracking service. Portions of the Millipore site are available in six languages.

Many suppliers of molecular biology products provide useful Web sites. The Promega site contains vector sequences, technical information, and an online catalog. Pricing is available in many currencies, and you can order online from within the United States. The Promega site also has pages in Spanish. The Boehringer Mannheim site provides technical manuals and tips. Using their online catalog, one can search by product and product application. FMC BioProducts, a supplier of agarose and sequencing reagents, has a site with great technical information about agarose and agarose gels. The FMC BioProducts site includes protocols, a newsletter, and online ordering.

Invitrogen offers expression systems and other products for cell and molecular biology. You can browse or search the Web catalog and place orders online. The site includes newsletters, manuals, and vector maps with sequences and restriction analyses. A new feature is the product citation database. The site of another firm, The NEST Group, supplies products for molecular biology, purification, and electrophoresis. The NEST Group site contains price lists, protocols and links and the extensive "NEST Group Idea Book." The NEST site also supports online ordering.

Clontech supplies products for cell and molecular biology and genomics research. The searchable site provides new product announcements, product profiles with references to the literature, a technical tips section, and vector sequences. Clontech product catalogs and user manuals are online and new products are added as they become available. You can also search for journal articles that have cited a particular Clontech product. Another site, BIOMOL, provides signal transduction and related reagents. The Web site includes a searchable catalog of products and contact information for offices worldwide. The BIOMOL site also contains new product information, research news, and a good link collection. A bulletin board allows information exchange between customers and staff.

Molecular Probes produces reagents for fluorescence technology, including fluorescent probes, dyes and standards and kits. The searchable site includes an updated html edition of their handbook and other product literature. The Molecular Probes Gallery has a beautiful collection of images and movies. Molecular Probes has also compiled a nice list of Web sites relevant to their products. Life Technologies Gibco BRL supplies products for animal and plant cell culture and cell biology. The Gibco BRL site has an online catalog and ordering system. You can browse or search Gibco BRL's Tech-Online library of product information for protocols, technical bulletins, FAQs and troubleshooting information.

Beckman Instruments manufactures laboratory equipment for biomedical and clinical applications. The searchable site presents all the products plus the latest developments. The Beckman site contains images of all products and FAQ sections, and is available in German, French and Japanese versions. The research and drug discovery bulletins contain references to the literature. Nikon, a producer of laboratory and clinical microscopes, has an outstanding searchable Web site. It presents profiles of all their microscopes and different microscope series. The Nikon Gallery features an excellent collection of biological and other images. You can also send email postcards of images to friends or colleagues.

The major biosupply distributors and catalog suppliers provide Web sites. VWR Scientific Products has its general, chemical, clean-room, and safety catalogs online. The searchable VWR catalogs list sales and promotions. Fisher Scientific also provides online versions of its general, chemical, and safety products catalogs, which list new products and worldwide distributors. However, the Fisher online catalogs are not searchable. Both VWR and Fisher list product prices and support online ordering. The Sigma-Aldrich chemical catalog is also available online. Sigma is developing a search engine for the site, and price quotes are available only via email. In general, these huge catalogs are slow to download, making it more efficient just to leaf through the paper catalogs. Alternatively, the Pierce Chemical Company has assembled an excellent online catalog that is both browsable and searchable. Technical resources are provided to registered users free of charge.

The Scientist's LabConsumer is reviewed in HMS Beagle's Site Review.

Biotechnology Companies - a descriptive list of selected firms, maintained by the University of Texas at Galveston. Most corporate Web sites can be located using any search engine, however.

SciTech - an online software catalog that includes products for biology and chemistry applications.