Arcturus of Mountain View, Calif., has rolled out a new version of its RiboAmp RNA Amplification Kit, which it says takes only six hours per round. The kit includes low-elution volume DNA and RNA purification columns and reagents, which are designed for obtaining large amounts of aRNA from minute sample sizes. “It used to take two full days to get two rounds, now it takes one day,” an Arcturus representative said. The kit costs $695, but the company is offering an introductory buy-one-get-one-free special.
Optimal Design of Brussels, Belgium, has introduced version two of its ArrayMiner non-hierarchical clustering algorithm, which is designed to capture the structure of microarray data based on proximity principles. “The fundamental improvement over the first version is the rigor applied in clustering,” said Emanuel Falkenauer, of Optimal Design. “We have basically followed the same clustering concept as before, but we felt there was a way to do better, and have devoted the time between September and now to making a new version.” The algorithm, which Silicon Genetics distributes as an add-on to GeneSpring, retails for $2,000 to commercial users and $1,000 to academics. For a detailed discussion of the new version, go to www.optimaldesign.com/Download/ArrayMiner/AM2whitepaper.pdf.