OGT Services cherry-picks probes for microarrays

28-Jul-2005

Researchers at the William Dunn School of pathology, University of Oxford, have turned to Oxford-based Company OGT Services to help them optimise probes of interest prior to selecting them for a microarray-based project. The project is focusing on the mouse immune system, specifically on about 768 genes at present, with a plan to double this number in the near future. As Dr Nigel Saunders, Lecturer in microbiology at the William Dunn School of Pathology, explained, working with OGT made good experimental as well as good economic sense.

"We wanted to take an informed approach to this work and so we designed up to five probes for every gene, which OGT synthesised using its on-slide synthesis methodology. We then tested the probes in three different hybridisations, compared their functional performances, and could modify them during the experiments according to our needs and according to how they performed. This information helped us to select the probes that we will use in-house with the microarray infrastructure we already have in place."

"Apart from their technical expertise, the most important thing that OGT offers is flexibility. Ideally you want a company that is prepared to address things on an individual project basis and will do as much or as little as you want it to. OGT does just that, providing an excellent service where I need it, but leaving me with complete access and control over my data and the whole process of analysis." - copy ends -

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