Agencourt, Affymetrix Clinical Services Lab and NuGEN Announce Collaboration
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Agencourt Bioscience, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Beckman Coulter, Inc., NuGEN Technologies, Inc., and Affymetrix Clinical Services Laboratory (ACSL) have announced a collaboration that has yielded a service offering for the automated isolation and target preparation of RNA from whole blood samples collected, stabilized, and stored in PAXgene Blood Tubes.
The service offering enables expression analysis profiling using Affymetrix GeneChip® technology and is valuable for pharmaceutical companies focused on drug discovery and development. It is also useful for government agencies conducting biomarker discovery and cancer research and for academic centers of excellence and core labs where rapid, high-throughput applications are critical.
This service offering automates the Agencourt RNAdvance™ Blood chemistry and NuGEN’s Ovation® Whole Blood Solution for RNA amplification and labeling, which utilizes the Agencourt RNAClean® Kit and the Agencourt SPRIPlate® 96R Magnet Plate.
Together, the complete workflow can deliver high yields from small RNA samples. Automation is carried out with Beckman Coulter’s ArrayPLEX application on the Biomek® FX Liquid Handling Workstation. Customized methods were developed by Array Automation, LLC, a joint venture of Beckman Coulter and Affymetrix.
Demonstrating the performance of this high-throughput automated solution in a validated, reproducible, and CLIA-certified laboratory environment was critical.
“We have successfully created an automated protocol that makes gene expression analysis from blood feasible for clinical research labs. NuGEN, Agencourt, and Beckman Coulter each bring a key component to the processes of RNA isolation, amplification, and target preparation for our GeneChip® microarray format,” explained Cynthia French, Ph.D., MBA, vice president, Affymetrix Clinical Services Laboratory.
“Because high-throughput solutions may address labor shortages in clinical research laboratories, a key advantage these companies offer is the ability to automate each of the steps using the Beckman Coulter liquid handling systems.”
“We are delighted to collaborate with Agencourt and Affymetrix on cutting-edge work in response to the promise of personalized medicine and translating today’s discoveries into tomorrow’s diagnostic applications,” commented Sue Pandey, Ph.D., vice president of commercial operations for NuGEN Technologies.
“We already had built a successful relationship with Agencourt, having packaged our WT-Ovation™ Pico Amplification System with the Agencourt RNAClean technology. This latest collaboration and the inclusion of Affymetrix brings this robust solution to new and powerful clinical applications,” Mr. Pandey continued.
