Date: Aug 27, 2005 Source: NIH Success Stories (
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Technology Developed:
This highly-successful software project substantially advanced Celadon's flagship software product, ProbeITy, which is a sophisticated expert system for the design of oligonucleotide assays. The project advanced the science of oligonucleotide design, and implemented automated assay design for a number of the most widely-used genomic methods, including: PCR; PCR-Sequencing; Mass Extend SNPs; and Amplicon Walking.
Uses of Technology/Products/Service:
The use of ProbeITy results in better, less-costly, assay design for a variety of oligonucleotide methods. These methods apply to fundamental and widely-used genomic applications, including: amplification, sequencing, gene expression, SNP genotyping, gene expression analysis, and Quantitative PCR. These methods help scientists to identify genes that are involved in disease, to identify new drugs, and to describe the effects of drug candidates. In addition to the methods listed above, a number of other methods are available, including: TaqMan qPCR; Amplifluor SNPs; Amplifluor Gene Expression; and siRNA for RNA Interference.
Other Comments Related to Company's Success Story:
A bottleneck to high-throughput genotyping in laboratories such as the National Cancer Institute's Core Genotyping Facility (http://cgf.nci.nih.gov/home.cfm) has been slow, tedious assay design that requires highly-trained personnel, and that result in an unacceptably high assay failure rate. This project has nearly eliminated that substantial bottleneck, and the NCI will recoup the cost of the project within a year. The scientific advances of the project include: application of the latest algorithm for predicting cross-hybridization mechanics, which is known as the partition function; better assay accuracy; internal stability; computational speed; and the ability to assess off-target hybridizations of primers and probes to the human genome or transcriptome. The software is conveniently integrated into LIM systems, and it is commercially available to any core genotyping facility, or other laboratory that designs its own oligonucleotide assays.
Past R&D and/or Sales from this Project: $3.0 million
