Biosearch Technologies - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Biosearch Technologies, Inc. is a closely held biotechnology

Biotechnology

Biotechnology is a field of applied biology that involves the use of living organisms and bioprocesses in engineering, technology, medicine and other fields requiring bioproducts. Biotechnology also utilizes these products for manufacturing purpose...

company based in Novato, California

Novato, California

Novato is a city located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, in northern Marin County. Novato is located about north-northwest of San Rafael, at an elevation of 30 feet above sea level . The 2010 U.S. Census estimated the city population to be about 51,904. Novato is about ...

. This company specializes in custom synthesized oligonucleotides and DNA synthesis products.

Black Hole Quencher Dyes

In 2000, Biosearch Technologies developed a dark quencher

Dark quencher

A dark quencher is a substance that absorbs excitation energy from a fluorophore and dissipates the energy as heat; while a typical quencher re-emits much of this energy as light . Dark quenchers are used in molecular biology in conjunction with fluorophores...

known as the Black Hole Quencher dyes, which has become an industry standard product and is currently licensed out to a number of other biotechnology companies. The series of Black Hole Quencher dyes has its share of advantageous qualities because it has no native fluorescence, high signal-to-noise ratios, and has exceptional coupling efficiency. They are able to quench the entire visible spectrum and near IR spectrum, allowing end users to select from a broader range of fluorogenic reporter dyes, which makes the Black Hole Quenchers ideal for multiplexing assays.

Fluorogenic Probes and Primers

The research team at Biosearch Technologies also developed other fluorescent dyes such as the CAL Fluor, Quasar, and Pulsar series of dyes, which emit fluorescence from 500-700 nanometers. Equipped with the various technology in fluorescent dyes and quenchers, much of Biosearch Technologies' business comes from the design and manufacture of custom probes and primers, which are commonly used for genomic applications such as real-time, quantitative PCR and SNP genotyping

SNP genotyping

SNP genotyping is the measurement of genetic variations of single nucleotide polymorphisms between members of a species. It is a form of genotyping, which is the measurement of more general genetic variation. SNPs are one of the most common types of genetic variation...

Stellaris FISH Probes

In 2010, Biosearch Technologies acquired an exclusive license to the single molecule fish technology developed by scientists at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey

University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey

The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey is the state-run health sciences institution of New Jersey, United States. It has eight distinct academic units...

. The technology is now branded as Stellaris FISH, and is a method of detecting and quantifying mRNA and other long RNA molecules in a thin layer of tissue sample. The technology is a refinement of earlier RNA ISH

Ish

Ish may refer to:*Chazon Ish, sobriquet of Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz*the Sanskrit for "lord", see Ishvara*Ishan Morris, Canadian singer and actor*Ish Kabibble , comedian and cornet player...

technologies, and uses multiple singly labeled

Fluorophore

A fluorophore, in analogy to a chromophore, is a component of a molecule which causes a molecule to be fluorescent. It is a functional group in a molecule which will absorb energy of a specific wavelength and re-emit energy at a different wavelength...

DNA

Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...

oligonucleotide probes

Hybridization probe

In molecular biology, a hybridization probe is a fragment of DNA or RNA of variable length , which is used in DNA or RNA samples to detect the presence of nucleotide sequences that are complementary to the sequence in the probe...

to increase sensitivity and specificity

Sensitivity and specificity

Sensitivity and specificity are statistical measures of the performance of a binary classification test, also known in statistics as classification function. Sensitivity measures the proportion of actual positives which are correctly identified as such Sensitivity and specificity are statistical...

Design Service - RealTimeDesign

Biosearch Technologies also offers a free, web-based design service known as RealTimeDesign (RTD) equipped with comprehensive algorithms that allows the software to model and propose quantitative PCR and SNP genotyping assays. RealTimeDesign is meant to help scientists craft custom oligonucleotides

Oligonucleotide synthesis

Oligonucleotide synthesis is the chemical synthesis of relatively short fragments of nucleic acids with defined chemical structure . The technique is extremely useful in current laboratory practice because it provides a rapid and inexpensive access to custom-made oligonucleotides of the desired...

averaging 99% in amplification efficiency through a series of different features offered by the software. Some of those features include a direct link to NCBI

National Center for Biotechnology Information

The National Center for Biotechnology Information is part of the United States National Library of Medicine , a branch of the National Institutes of Health. The NCBI is located in Bethesda, Maryland and was founded in 1988 through legislation sponsored by Senator Claude Pepper...

and BLAST

BLAST

In bioinformatics, Basic Local Alignment Search Tool, or BLAST, is an algorithm for comparing primary biological sequence information, such as the amino-acid sequences of different proteins or the nucleotides of DNA sequences...

databases as well as a selection of user-modifiable parameters.

Founding

Although Biosearch Technologies was founded in 1993, its roots can be traced back to 1979 when it was preceded by its first company, Biosearch, Inc., incorporated by Dr. Ronald Cook. Biosearch, Inc. experienced 9 years of DNA synthesis instrumentation and chemistry by playing a key role in engineering and manufacturing one of the first automated solid-phase DNA synthesis

Oligonucleotide synthesis

instruments, the SAM I. As time progressed, Biosearch was also able to bring other DNA synthesizers to market such as the Biosearch 8700, Biosearch 8800 Prep, and the Cyclone.

Mergers and Acquisitions

In 1987, Biosearch was acquired by New Brunswick Scientific who later sold the Biosearch unit to Millipore Corporation

Millipore Corporation

EMD Millipore, also known as Merck Millipore outside the United States and Canada, was founded in 1954, listed among the S&P 500 since the early 1990s, is an international biosciences company, known widely for its micrometer pore-size filters and tests...

in 1988. By 1989, Biosearch was renamed Milligen-Biosearch. Due to the loss of several corporate officers, Milligen-Biosearch was subsequently acquired by PerSeptive Biosystems which in turn was acquired by Applied Biosystems

Applied Biosystems

Applied Biosystems, Inc. started as GeneCo , was the name of a pioneer biotechnology company founded in 1981 in Foster City, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area...

who eventually retired the Biosearch name and products.

After taking a short hiatus, Dr. Cook decided to return to the oligonucleotide industry and founded what is currently known as Biosearch Technologies, Inc.

Recognition in PCR research

When Kary Mullis

Kary Mullis

Kary Banks Mullis is a Nobel Prize winning American biochemist, author, and lecturer. In recognition of his improvement of the polymerase chain reaction technique, he shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Michael Smith and earned the Japan Prize in the same year. The process was first...

received the Nobel Prize in 1993 and gave his Nobel Lecture concerning his invention of the polymerase chain reaction

Polymerase chain reaction

The polymerase chain reaction is a scientific technique in molecular biology to amplify a single or a few copies of a piece of DNA across several orders of magnitude, generating thousands to millions of copies of a particular DNA sequence....

(PCR) method, he gratefully acknowledged Biosearch and Dr. Cook's role in providing him one of the first SAM I DNA synthesizers which was used in support of Kary Mullis' PCR research.

External links

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