Affymetrix this week launched its Human Transcriptome Array. The 6.9 million-feature chip was developed with researchers in Stanford University's Genome Technology Center and Department of Biochemistry as part of the NIH Glue Grants program, a three-year multicenter effort to answer clinical questions requiring a translational bench to bedside strategy.
Affy said that it is selling the Human Transcriptome Array to early-access customers at pharmaceutical and research institutions using microarrays or next-generation sequencing for basic discovery or whole-transcriptome analyses.
The firm claims its array is "sensitive enough to reproducibly measure low-abundance transcripts in complex disease and reproducible enough to take their de novo research to the clinical level.
Affy noted that in a study published this month, the Stanford researchers compared the new array to RNA-seq over multiple independent replicates of liver and muscle samples and determined that the chip was "highly reproducible in estimating gene and exon abundance and more sensitive at the exon level" when compared with RNA-seq of 46 million uniquely mappable reads per replicate.
OriGene Technologies last month introduced its High-Density Protein Microarray Chip for the quality control of its TrueMAB monoclonal antibodies.
The new chip enables OriGene to screen monoclonal antibodies against 10,000 human proteins to provide the most specific monoclonal antibodies. The antibodies validated with the OriGene High-Density Protein Microarray Chip will enable in vitro diagnostic manufacturers to develop the most accurate and specific immunoassays for clinical applications, the Rockville, Md.-based company said.