PrimerDesign has launched a custom real-time PCR assay design, validation and synthesis service, which it believes to be the most thorough and most customisable service available
Good design attributes for primers are now well known and computers are an essential aid for all primer design solutions.
However, when design is completely automated, software alone is rarely capable of considering all the criteria necessary for sensitive and reproducible assays.
Customers can be assured therefore that each PrimerDesign assay is individually designed by an experienced molecular biologist, says the comany.
Many sequences do not contain the 'perfect' primer binding sites.
It is a skill to select the best primers from a list of possible candidates, based on secondary considerations and subtle expertise.
Furthermore, researchers will often have specific requirements, eg, detection of splice variants.
PrimerDesign says it is able to incorporate custom requests into its design method because scientists, not computers, are at the centre of it.
Following careful design, primers and/or probe are synthesised and their performance validated on biologically relevant material.
As opposed to many companies who validate primers on a short synthetic template, PrimerDesign validate assays on cDNA from an extensive cDNA bank.
This complex biological model is advantageous because it replicates the potential for mis-priming etc that occurs in a real experimental scenario.
Assays are therefore guaranteed to work to a very high standard when it comes to performing crucial experiments with precious samples.
PrimerDesign currently offer custom real time PCR kits for any human, rat or mouse gene for use with either SYBR green or with the added specificity of its own PerfectProbe.
