Company Announcements

In March, Roche NimbleGen named Frank Pitzer, PhD, CEO. He was most recently head of Divisional Quality and Regulatory Affairs at Roche Diagnostics.

Roche Diagnostics purchased in March assets from BioMicro Systems for all products associated with the Roche NimbleGen microarray workflow, including the NimbleGen Hybridization Systems.

Roche NimbleGen named imaGenes GmbH a Certified Service Provider for CGH.

Product Introductions

Affymetrix and The Jackson Laboratory launched the Affymetrix Mouse Diversity Genotyping Array, which can simultaneously assay 623,124 SNPs.

Affymetrix released the MIP Copy Number Service for obtaining allele-specific copy number data from FFPE samples. It is available through the Affymetrix Research Services Laboratory.

Affymetrix introduced in April the Axiom Genome-Wide ASI Array for maximized coverage of East Asian populations for genome-wide association studies.

Aushon BioSystems launched the Human Vascular Injury multiplex biomarker panels for the quantification of seven biomarkers.

In April, Illumina released the VeraCode ADME Core Panel, which is designed to help researchers study genetic predispositions for differential drug response and adverse events. The panel contains 184 biomarkers in 34 genes.

In June, Illumina began shipping the HumanOmni2.5-Quad DNA Analysis BeadChip, with 10 million markers per array, and the Human Omni1S-8 BeadChip.

BioServe and Protein Biotechnologies released the SomaPlex Reverse Phase Protein Microarray for rapidly profiling protein expression in serum collected from human breast-cancer patients. It can be used with a range of detection systems.

Roche NimbleGen announced in April that its Service Business is offering 2 µm resolution scanning on the NimbleGen MS 200 Microarray Scanner for CGH arrays.

VigeneTech introduced an OEM image analysis software solution to support Life Technologies’ Prodigy automated research-use microarray platform.

In April, Gentel Biosciences launched the ApiX View Detection Kits for chromogenic detection of protein microarrays. This expands the ApiX technology to include tumor lysate arrays on porous nitrocellulose surfaces.

In May, Agilent introduced the SurePrint G3 Gene Expression Microarray, providing up to one million features per standard 1-by-3-inch slide. It combines coding and noncoding RNAs on a single array.

In June, Oxford Gene Technology announced that its CytoSure Interpret Software can seamlessly transfer array CGH aberration data directly to Cartagenia’s Bench constitutional cytogenetics platform.