Caliper Life Sciences has launched a new high throughput RNA assay for automatically assessing the concentration, integrity and overall quality of purified RNA samples
The assay, which was expected by the research community, was launched on schedule and runs in a microfluidic chip format on Caliper's LabChip 90 instrument and has been designed specifically so that researchers can conveniently analyse larger numbers of samples rapidly.
The new assay measures the integrity of purified RNA samples prior to using such samples for critical applications such as microarray analysis or quantitative transcript analysis using real-time PCR.
In combination with the LabChip 90 instrument and high throughput analysis software, the new HT RNA assay provides full walk away automation for up to 300 samples per day, resulting in significant time and cost savings when carrying out high throughput gene expression studies.
"Gene expression analysis has become a key tool for new target identification, lead optimization, and even for toxicological profiling," said Kevin Hrusovsky, president and CEO, Caliper Life Sciences.
"The new HT RNA assay, which compliments our existing LC 90 DNA and protein assays, will allow researchers to produce a larger amount of significantly higher quality gene expression data.
"This new product release reflects our strategy of providing tools and services to enable new experimental approaches that can directly accelerate the development and advancement of new drug discovery targets as well as help move candidate compounds from hits to validated leads".
Caliper's high throughput RNA assay allows for a once-a-day setup with walk up service throughout the day, ensuring ease-of-use for bench scientists as they complete this critical part of their workload.
The assay is extremely time-efficient and cost-sensitive, automating RNA quality assessment, reducing manual pipetting and providing sample integrity assessment results in 80 seconds per sample.
The microfluidic processing also uses only 2ul of sample, which reserves most of the valuable sample for use in processes further downstream.
