Review Article

The past couple of years have seen exciting new developments in microchip-based gene synthesis technologies. Such technologies hold the potential for significantly increasing the throughput and decreasing the cost of gene synthesis. Together with more efficient enzymatic error correction and genome assembly methods, these new technologies are pushing the field of synthetic biology to a higher level. (See OligoMix® Microarray Synthesized Oligos) Ma S, Tang N, Tian J. (2012)

Some of our customers recount their experiences with LC Sciences in a review article by Jeffrey M. Perkel in the September issue of The Scientist focusing on RNA... “The essence of the scientific enterprise,” says Bill Nye, “the Science Guy,” “[is] the Joy of Discovery.”1 But that doesn’t mean it’s practical or even feasible for researchers to do all the discovering themselves. Take RNA expression analysis. With microarrays and

As high-throughput techniques accelerate mapping of epigenetic marks, researchers are racing to find the biological meaning of these marks. Thanks to the Human Genome Project, researchers worldwide can search a database to see what a gene 'says'. In just a few years, researchers may also be able to look up when a gene is 'read'. Or, rather, they will be able to pull up the epigenome, the set of chemical modifications to DNA and DNA-spooling proteins that coordinate how cells

Frank Breitling1 , Christopher Schirwitz2, Thomas Felgenhauer2, Ines Block2, Volker Stadler2 and Ralf Bischoff2 (1)  Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Helmholtzplatz 1, 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany (2)  AG Chipbasierte Peptidbibliotheken, Im Neuenheimer Feld 580, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany   Affordable high-density peptide arrays are needed to routinely define the exact binding sites of antibodies. In terms of prize and density peptide arrays currently lag far behind oligonucleotide arrays that are available in densities exceeding 50.000 oligonucleotides per cm2. This is mainly due to the

By Anne Harding Microarrays are a vital tool in research on microRNAs, the tiny noncoding stretches of genetic material that regulate messenger RNA. They can’t be beat for reading the microRNA “fingerprints” unique to disease states. But keeping up with this super hot field is a challenge for commercial microarray makers, and competition is fierce. (read more)

Peptide drug discovery is a huge endeavor—and a huge field. Researchers and tool/technology developers alike traveled to Seoul recently for BIT Life Sciences’ “PepCon” meeting, where advances and trends in peptide and protein research were shared. (read more)

The rapid improvements in DNA synthesis technology hold the potential to revolutionize biosciences in the near future. Traditional genetic engineering methods are template dependent and make extensive but laborious use of site-directed mutagenesis to explore the impact of small variations on an existing sequence “theme.” De novo gene and genome synthesis frees the investigator from the restrictions of the pre-existing template and allows for the rational design of any conceivable new sequence

In 1992, Ronald Frank published the first seminal paper on simultaneous parallel synthesis of multiple peptides on filter paper. He defined the approach as SPOT synthesis, an easy technique for positionally addressable, parallel chemical synthesis on a membrane support. Here, a basic overview of this technology is presented and a recently published applications are highlighted. At the end, the future of peptide arrays is discussed.  (read more)

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