Ann Arbor-based Rubicon Genomics Inc., a developer of products that enable optimal performance of advanced genetic analysis tools, announced Wednesday that it has reached agreement with Cambridge England-based BlueGnome to non-exclusively market its PicoPlex technology to In Vitro Fertilization researchers under the name SurePlex DNA Amplification System.
The technology will be part of the BlueGnome 24sure microarray-based technology for screening of 24 chromosomes and other detection systems.
“This agreement with BlueGnome represents a major step in the introduction of Rubicon’s pre-analytical amplification technology into the marketplace," said Rubicon acting president and CEO James Koziarz. "Rubicon has the technology capable of performing rapid amplification of nucleic acids from a wide variety of sample types easily and with excellent fidelity.”
Added Nick Haan, founder and CEO of Blue Gnome, a developer of technology that detects copy number imbalances in the human genome: "SurePlex represents a major step forward in amplification technology and a significant advance in IVF testing that will facilitate evaluation of embryos prior to implantation. We selected PicoPlex as the basis of SurePlex due to its rapid protocol, highly representative amplification and improved consistency over other amplification methods."
With PicoPlex technology, the same amount of genomic data can be obtained from one cell as from 10,000 cells and with minimal background. Using this technology, pre-implantation genetic diagnostics, cancer and stem cell researchers can reproducibly amplify total DNA one million-fold from single cells to produce five micrograms of amplified DNA in less than three hours.
Current single-cell WGA kits that use molecular displacement amplification technology inconsistently amplify whole genomes with random allele and locus dropouts. PicoPlex, however, delivers amplified genomic DNA that reproducibly represents all sequences with low allele drop out.
The PicoPlex technology is the first in a series of new amplification technologies that will be introduced into the nucleic acid testing market by Rubicon Genomics. To find out more or to purchase PicoPlex Single Cell Whole Genome Amplification kits, visit http://www.rubicongenomics.com/picoplex/.
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