by
Astrid Fiano, DOTmed News Writer | February 03, 2009
WaferGen Biosystems, Inc., a company specializing in developing state-of-the-art gene expression, genotyping, cell biology and stem cell research systems, has announced that academic researchers have successfully demonstrated the performance of the company's SmartChip™ Real-Time PCR System in the initial phase of the platform's ongoing alpha testing program.
According to WaferGen, the initial tests conducted at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have "demonstrated a number of the SmartChip system's key analytical specifications, showing the product's complete workflow on 1,000 oncology genes using small amounts of samples from emphysema, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and healthy patients."
The press release states that the key workflow elements successfully demonstrated include primer-ready SmartChips and the drying and reconstitution of primers for rapid high-throughput 100 nL real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). WaferGen also says that the system's ability to perform PCR in nano-volumes without any pre-amplification has been demonstrated.
"The successful demonstration of the performance of the revolutionary SmartChip system in a rigorous research setting is a tremendous step forward for this novel platform. We are particularly excited that the platform has shown the ability to capture the expression of genes that have not been able to be seen using microarrays," stated Alnoor Shivji, WaferGen's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "We expect that this is just the first milestone related to the SmartChip alpha testing program and look forward to new findings on biomarker discovery and validation."
WaferGen says that the SmartChip alpha testing program concerned RNA isolated from lung tissue samples from healthy patients, and also patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and IPF. WafterGen's release says researchers are screening the RNA samples with the SmartChip Real-Time PCR System in order to assess the platform's performance in conducting novel gene expression research. The next phase of the alpha testing program will focus on identifying biomarkers of interest. Upon completion of the ongoing alpha testing program, WaferGen intends the data to be presented and/or published in appropriate academic venues.
Source: www.wafergen.com
