Clontech Laboratories of Mountain View, Calif., has received US Patent No. 7,556,919, "Long oligonucleotide arrays." The patent describes methods for the preparation and use of long oligonucleotide arrays in hybridization assays. According to the patent abstract, a portion of the probes of the array are long oligonucleotides ranging in length from about 50 to 120 nt. Each long oligonucleotide probe on the array is chosen to exhibit substantially the same high target binding efficiency and substantially the same low non-specific binding under described conditions. The arrays can be used in such applications as differential gene expression analysis.
Cornell Research Foundation of Ithaca, NY, the University of Minnesota of Minneapolis, and Louisiana State University of Baton Rouge have received US Patent No. 7,556,924, "Detection of nucleic acid sequence differences using coupled ligase detection with padlock probes and polymerase chain reactions." The patent describes a method for identifying a target nucleotide sequence. The method involves forming a ligation product on a target nucleotide sequence in a ligase detection reaction mixture, amplifying the ligation product to form an amplified ligation product in a PCR mixture, detecting the amplified ligation product, and identifying the target nucleotide sequence. The coupling of the ligase detection reaction and the polymerase chain reaction permits multiplex detection of nucleic acid sequence differences, according to the patent.
Millipore of Billerica, Mass., has received US Patent No. 7,557,070, "Multiplexed cell analysis system." The patent claims a system for conducting a multiplexed cellular experiment. The system includes a solid support; a container suitable for mixing microcarriers; and a mixture of fiat microcarriers randomly distributed on the solid support. The mixture includes a first class of fiat microcarriers containing a detectably distinct first code and a second class of flat microcarriers with a detectably distinct second code. The mixture of microcarriers, therefore, can be analyzed in the same multiplexed experiment by identifying populations of cells according to the codes on their respective microcarriers.
Ocimum Biosolutions of Hyderabad, India, has received US Patent No. 7,558,411, "Method and system for managing and querying gene expression data according to quality." The patent claims an automated system and method for analyzing gene-expression data obtained from microarrays with mismatch probe pairs and perfect match probe pairs. The image data for the scanned arrays is stored in a database along with a set of microarray parameters, including image-processing metrics for quality control of the microarray and a pass/fail status of the array as determined by the metrics. The image-processing metrics include algorithms for removing local background effects from the probe measurements by determining a model for estimated background using PM probe values. Other image processing metrics utilize a modified robust multi-array averaging approach applied to PM probes to assign weights to probes for determining overall quality of a microarray.