CARL R. WOESE INSTITUTE FOR GENOMIC BIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN A new agreement between the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and ZEISS has named the Core Facilities at IGB as an official ZEISS labs@location Partner. The model facility will allow researchers from around the U.S. to test-drive new instruments in the IGB’s Core Facilities Microscopy Suite. This partnership represents the first North American location of the ZEISS labs@location partner program, already in use across Europe. “With this special partnership with IGB Core Facilities, we transfer a successful labs@location program from Europe to the U.S.,” said Jim Sharp, President Carl Zeiss Microscopy LLC. “labs@location is a community of our ZEISS customers and partners providing in depth knowledge and dedicated services. We are very excited that the IGB becomes our first American ZEISS labs@location.” The agreement will allow IGB and Illinois researchers access to select cutting edge technologies immediately following–or in some cases before–their broad release. New instruments, on loan from ZEISS, will cycle through the Core and be available to all users during that time. In addition, the agreement provides for training and classes taught by ZEISS personnel at the IGB that will better position Core staff and researchers to best utilize new equipment. ZEISS instrument specialists will provide instruction and instrument demos to Illinois and visiting scientists, as well as assist in training the IGB Core staff to provide similar instruction themselves. “ZEISS training is really valuable,” said Core Facilities Director Glenn Fried, “but until now, you’ve had to send your people to the ZEISS Microscopy Customer Center in New York twice a year to see that benefit. Now all of my staff, as well as graduate students, postdocs, and faculty, can come to those classes at the IGB.” Fried anticipates that one of the first new instruments under the agreement will be a ZEISS Celldiscoverer 7, a new automated microscopy platform for high throughput live cell imaging. Though the IGB has equipment for that purpose, Fried says that the ZEISS Celldiscoverer 7 offers improved clarity and visibility, allowing for sharper and more accurate images. “This is a really exciting thing for the Core, and for everyone who uses our instruments,” said Fried. “Researchers will have access to the newest technology–like ZEISS Celldiscoverer–long before they would if we had to write a grant or even just went out and bought it.” In all, the ZEISS partnership promises to establish itself as a regional center of excellence in biological imaging by attracting researchers from around the country to demo new instruments and attend trainings. “We are thrilled to partner with ZEISS in this way, because it will enhance the research capabilities of scientists studying many different types of questions, thus enabling the IGB to provide an important new benefit to the campus. Being selected by ZEISS to be the first labs@location in North America is a great honor, and a recognition of the excellence of our Core Facilities and especially the entire Core Facilities staff,” said IGB Director Gene Robinson.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Cellecta, Inc. today announced the launch of the Driver-Map™ Human Genome-Wide Gene Expression Profiling kit, a targeted RNA expression profiling assay designed to easily provide a molecular snapshot of all known 19,000 human protein-coding genes from complex samples starting from as little as 10 pg of total RNA.
The multiplex RT-PCR-based, followed by next-generation sequencing (NGS) method used in the Driver-Map Expression Profiling kit allows researchers access to the specially designed and experimentally validated gene-specific primer pairs to run samples in their own laboratories. This enables them to generate data that is more sensitive and easier to analyze when compared to conventional genome-wide expression profiling approaches such as RNA-Seq and microarray platforms.
“The simple, robust Driver-Map assay is ideal for use in characterization of complex biological samples,” said Alex Chenchik, Ph.D., president and chief scientific officer of Cellecta. “Some novel applications for this gold-standard RT-PCR technology include biomarker discovery with whole blood without a globin or rRNA depletion step, detection of circulating tumor cells (CTC) in whole blood without previous CTC enrichment, high sensitivity profiling of tumor, stromal and infiltrating immune cell types from a complex tumor microenvironment, and expression profiling of patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models without interference from mouse background cells.”
The Driver-Map™ Expression Profiling assay is highly reproducible, even starting with minimal amounts of RNA sample. Noteworthy features of this assay include:
- Selective amplification of 19,000 annotated human transcripts using RT-PCR directly from total RNA–requiring no previous rRNA purification, globin depletion or polyA enrichment steps. This results in less complex, more reproducible protocols, a streamlined workflow, simplified data analysis and greater sensitivity.
- Experimentally validated GCA-rich primers comprise an optimal genome-wide primer set that reliably and specifically measures mRNAs without background from other RNAs. This allows for a more comprehensive view of the spectrum of gene regulation, and detection of low-, medium-, as well as highly abundant transcripts in a single multiplex reaction. The resulting 100,000-fold dynamic range represents up to 100-fold greater sensitivity than RNA-Seq or microarrays.
- Built-in, internal ERCC control RNAs compensate for batch effects and other technical variation, resulting in improved RNA quality control and more reliable data.
The Driver-Map™ assay kit includes a complete set of gene-specific and PCR-NGS primers, buffers, spike-in ERCC and positive control RNAs as well as all other reagents required to profile 24 samples and prepare them for digital expression profiling using NGS on an Illumina sequencing platform. NGS reagents are not included in the Driver-Map assay kit.
The Driver-Map™ Human Genome-Wide Gene Expression Profiling kit (Catalog # DM-hgw) is available now. For more information, please visit www.driver-map.com
About Cellecta:
Cellecta, Inc., a trusted provider of genomic products and services, is an industry leader in RNAi and CRISPR technologies for the discovery and characterization of novel therapeutic targets, and genetic profiling for biomarker discovery. Numerous scientific papers have been published citing Cellecta’s functional genomics portfolio offering gene knockout and knockdown screens, custom and genome-wide RNAi and CRISPR libraries, cell engineering, RNAi and CRISPR construct services, and mutation and expression profiling of disease samples.
Cellecta, Inc. is headquartered in Mountain View, California. Further information about the company and its functional genomic products and services may be found online at www.cellecta.com
