Becton Dickinson has been awarded US Patent No. 8,324,364, "Compositions and methods for the identification of a carbapenemase gene."
Craig Whiteford and Charles Yu are named as inventors.
Provides compositions and methods for rapidly and sensitively detecting a carbapenemase in a sample. The compositions include novel primer and probe compositions for use in detecting the presence of this enzyme in a sample, particularly using PCR and, more particularly, quantitative PCR methods. These primers and probe sets can be packaged into kits for use in amplification methods for the purpose of detecting carbapenemase in a test sample, particularly a patient sample, and more particularly a direct sample.
Becton Dickinson has also been awarded US Patent No. 8,323,929, "Methods for detecting nucleic acid sequence variations."
Sha-Sha Wang, Keith Thornton, James Nadeau, and Tobin Hellyer are named as inventors.
Describes the use of an unlabeled signal primer comprising a 5' adapter sequence to detect variations in nucleic acid target sequences. The detection system further comprises a reporter probe, the 3' end of which hybridizes to the complement of the 5' adapter sequence of the signal primer to produce a 5' overhang. Polymerase is used to fill in the overhang and synthesize the complement of the 5' overhang of the reporter probe. Synthesis of the reporter probe complement is detected, either directly or indirectly, as an indication of the presence of the target.
In addition, HandyLab (Becton Dickinson) has been awarded US Patent No. 8,323,900, "Microfluidic system for amplifying and detecting polynucleotides in parallel."
Kalyan Handique, Sundaresh Brahmasandra, Karthik Ganesan, and Jeff Williams are named as inventors.
Provides for an apparatus to detect polynucleotides in samples, particularly biological samples. The technology more particularly relates to microfluidic systems that carry out PCR on nucleotides of interest within microfluidic channels, and detect those nucleotides. The apparatus includes a microfluidic cartridge that is configured to accept a plurality of samples, and can carry out PCR on each sample individually, a group of samples, or all of the samples simultaneously.
The National University Corporation University of Toyama has been awarded US Patent No. 8,323,898, "Method for identifying pathogenic microorganisms responsible for infection by extracting the DNA of a microorganism."
Hideki Niimi and Isao Kitajima are named as inventors.
Discloses a method and system to rapidly detect and identify pathogenic bacteria responsible for infection (particularly septicemia), and select an appropriate antimicrobial drug. The method includes performing gene amplification such as real-time PCR, and analyzing the combination of the melting temperatures (Tm values) determined by amplification product melting curve analysis or the difference between the Tm values. Specifically, real-time PCR is performed using four to 16 primer sets including one to seven primer sets for the 16S ribosomal RNA of bacteria; one to six primer sets for the 18S ribosomal RNA of fungi; and one primer set respectively for the spa gene and the mecA gene specific to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The combination of the Tm values of the amplification products or the combination of the differences between the Tm values is compared with a database to identify pathogenic bacteria responsible for septicemia.
Applied Biosystems (Life Technologies) has been awarded US Patent No. 8,323,897, "Multiplex amplification of polynucleotides."
Mark Andersen and David Ruff are named as inventors.
Provides methods, reagents, and kits for carrying out a variety of assays that include an amplification step performed in a multiplex fashion and are suitable for analyzing polynucleotides or samples. Also provides methods for analyzing and improving the efficiency of amplification and for carrying out gene expression analysis.
The University of Southern California has been awarded US Patent No. 8,323,890, "Process for high-throughput DNA methylation analysis."
Peter Laird, Cindy Carroll, and Kathleen Danenberg are named as inventors.
Discloses a high-throughput and quantitative process to determine methylation patterns in genomic DNA samples based on amplifying modified nucleic acid, and detecting methylated nucleic acid based on amplification-dependent displacement of specifically annealed hybridization probes. Specifically, the invention provides for treating genomic DNA samples with sodium bisulfite to create methylation-dependent sequence differences, followed by detection with fluorescence-based quantitative PCR techniques. The process is particularly well-suited to rapidly analyze a large number of nucleic acid samples, such as those from collections of tumor tissues.