Douglas Machine has been awarded US Patent No. 8,541,238, "Apparatus and methods for performing real-time PCR in array tape."
Richard Schoeneck is named as the inventor.
Describes a carrier tape wound on and extending between first and second spools rotatably mounted to a read head that is submerged with a detector mounted on a guide mechanism into a fluid thermal media in the form of water or air contained in tanks. While submerged, the carrier tape can be wound from one spool to another. Further, the read head can be plunged multiple times in opposite directions in the fluid thermal media. The detector allows readings while the carrier tape and its contents are submerged in the fluid thermal media and can be a multi-channel, time-resolving photometer measuring fluorescence with at least one channel per row of wells arranged in an array.
Life Technologies has been awarded US Patent No. 8,541,219, "High-fidelity reverse transcriptases and the uses thereof."
Robert Potter and Kim Rosenthal are named as inventors.
Relates to reverse transcriptases with increased fidelity (or reduced misincorporation rate) and/or terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase activity. In particular, the invention relates to a method of making such reverse transcriptases by modifying or mutating specified positions in the reverse transcriptases. The invention also relates to nucleic acid molecules containing the genes encoding the reverse trancriptases, to host cells containing such nucleic acid molecules, and to methods of making the reverse trancriptases using the host cells. The reverse transcriptases are particularly suited for nucleic acid synthesis, sequencing, amplification, and cDNA synthesis, according to the patent's abstract.
Institut Pasteur has been awarded US Patent No. 8,541,206, "Differential amplification of mutant nucleic acids by PCR in a mixture of nucleic acids."
Simon Wain-Hobson and Jean-Pierre Vartanian are named as inventors.
Describes a method for enriching a mutant nucleic acid in a mixture of nucleic acids. The method comprises providing a nucleic acid mixture comprising a parental nucleic acid and a mutant of the parental nucleic acid, then amplifying the nucleic acids in the mixture by PCR. More specifically, the mutant nucleic acid is a G-to-A mutant of the parental nucleic acid, which pairs with a fully complementary nucleic acid sequence to form an AT-rich nucleic acid variant of the parental nucleic acid, which is denatured and selectively amplified by carrying out PCR using a denaturation temperature 1 to 3 °C lower than the lowest denaturation temperature that allows amplification of the parental nucleic acid to thereby enrich the mutant nucleic acid.
Gen-Probe (Hologic) has been awarded US Patent No. 8,541,171, "Assay for detection of human parvovirus B19 nucleic acid."
Steven Brentano, Margarita Batranina-Kaminsky, Cynthia Hasselkus-Light, and Daniel Kolk are named as inventors.
Discloses nucleic acid oligomers specific for human parvovirus B19 genomic DNA; an assay for amplifying and detecting human parvovirus B19 nucleic acid in biological specimens; and compositions for detecting the presence of parvovirus B19 genomic DNA in human biological specimens.