Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre (PMCC), based in Melbourne, Australia is using Caliper's Staccato automation system to perform oncology-related experiments.
It hopes these experiments will lead to a better understanding of how to treat and prevent cancer through gene knockdown therapies.
Dr Kaylene Simpson, manager of the functional genomics group at PMCC, said: 'The instrument helps us work towards our primary goals: to identify genes that regulate cancer-cell growth, survival and proliferation and responses to drug targets.' The Functional Genomics Group at PMCC is funded by the Australian Cancer Research Foundation (ACRF) and provides Australian research institutes with access to large scale, high-throughput gene knockdown technology that aids cancer research.
By eliminating a gene's ability to express, gene-knockdown techniques may uncover ways to silence specific genes associated with cancer, leading to new forms of treatment.
Researchers at PMCC are currently working with the Dharmacon entire human and mouse genome collections (up to 21,000 genes), attempting to knockdown each one.
The Staccato enables the researcher to work through these gene sets in a rapid, systematic and reproducible way.
