Luminex Corporation Launches Flexmi® Select

Luminex Corporation launched Flexmi® Select, a new microRNA (miRNA) assay designed to allow researchers to further advance understanding and enhance the analysis of miRNAs. The latest addition to Luminex's Flexmi® line of products, Flexmi® Select allows researchers to create customized miRNA panels for efficient and focused miRNA analysis.

"Researchers have made tremendous strides in identifying miRNAs and are beginning to uncover the role these tiny molecules play in disease," said Patrick J. Balthrop, president and chief executive officer of Luminex.

"The next step in miRNA research is more concentrated analyses of small sets of miRNAs. Flexmi® Select is the ideal tool for this next level of research as it allows researchers to custom order panels consisting only of the miRNAs in which they are interested. These custom panels allow for more streamlined experiments and enhanced examination of specific miRNAs," Balthrop added.

Until now, miRNA expression studies have been conducted on a global scale resulting in unnecessary data overload. Extensive expression studies have repeatedly shown that miRNA expression is specific to various experimental systems including tissues and cellular pathways. Application-specific subsets of miRNAs, which usually consist of fewer than 50 miRNAs, can be used to analyze larger numbers of samples to further investigate or validate potential miRNA markers.

"Flexmi® has enabled our lab to generate high quality data for our craniofacial bone development studies in less time compared to other technologies we have used," said Dr. Winston Patrick Kuo, Director of Laboratory for Innovative Translational Technologies at Harvard School of Dental Medicine.

"A better understanding of both normal and abnormal intramembranous bone development will be paramount to the advancement of future diagnoses, treatments and prevention of many craniofacial disorders. The ability to custom design our own assays will accelerate our research by allowing us to focus on bone-specific miRNAs that are relevant to our study."