febit Announces "PCR on a chip": Oligonucleotide Array with Free 3' Ends

febit biotech gmbh has announced that it has started shipping a tool for the GENIOM bioanalysis platform - the 3'-Inversed Synthesis Set for GENIOM biochips.

This technology enables reverse synthesis of DNA oligonucleotides on the biochip, thus providing a broad spectrum of applications for DNA microarrays. Enzymes can be directly applied in a biochip.

GENIOM allows the synthesis of user-specified biochips. This approach is designed to provide flexibility of test parameters, a high degree of automation as well as ultra-small volumes.

The applications of this technology are now expanded by the addition of enzymatic procedures to the GENIOM biochip, a microfluidic reaction carrier: ligonucleotides with a free 3' end are accessible to nucleic acid polymerases.

They may serve as primers for polymerase-based assays. This enzyme-on-chip approach shares many features with the widely used PCR technology, thus offering a substantial marketing potential.

Dr. Jorg Hoheisel at the German Cancer Research Institute already started using the 3'-Inverse Synthesis Set in his research that employs GENIOM as a key tool: "We opted for GENIOM since it provides us with the required flexibility and complete independence from third-party chip providers."

"Using the novel 3’-Inverse Synthesis Set we are able to pursue a radically new approach: oligonucleotides with any sequence can now be synthesized in 5'-3' direction providing a free 3' end."

"We use these e.g. for primer extension reactions enhancing the capacity and intensity in detection."