TATAA Biocenter expands digital PCR service offering with Stilla’s 6-color naica system

TATAA Biocenter, a European provider of molecular analysis services, announced it is adding Stilla’s six-color naica^® system to its digital PCR service offerings. Leveraging on the powerful multiplexing capabilities of the industry’s first digital PCR system featuring six fluorescent channels, TATAA Biocenter will develop custom assays based on TATAA Biocenter’s proprietary Two-Tailed PCR technology and offer ready-to-use dPCR kits for a variety of applications.

TATAA Biocenter has been providing dPCR service since 2008, when the company developed PCR tomography, and researchers from TATAA Biocenter coauthored the digital PCR MIQE (dMIQE) guidelines teaching how dPCR experiments shall be conducted and data reported. With its large instrument park, TATAA Biocenter tailors analyses to suit customers’ needs, developing and validating assays on the platform most suitable for the customer’s purpose. Services include supporting research projects, ISO 17025 accredited analysis as well as as well as readiness for GLP/GCP compliant work supporting drug development and clinical trials with focus on cell and gene therapies.

TATAA Biocenter has proprietary 2T-PCR technology that offers unprecedented specificity when testing for rare sequence variations, which is the most requested analytical service requiring dPCR. With 2T-PCR, much shorter nucleic acids can be tested than with classical PCR, making it the preferred method analyzing forensic samples, formalin fixed and paraffin embedded (FFPE) material, liquid biopsies and ancient DNA, where the nucleic acids may be extensively degraded. Using a single 2T-primer that hybridizes to the target with both its termini, called hemiprobes, that are connected by a stem loop structure that introduces the probe binding sequence, minimum target size is only some 15 bases rather than 70-80 bases for regular PCR. The design also dramatically enhances specificity as the target sequence is interrogated by hemiprobe, each being only 5-7 bases, instead of traditional primer and probes that are 20-25 bases long. The impact of a sequence mismatch due to mutation is thus considerably greater.

"With more than 20 years’ experience as a leading provider of genomic services for the research community and the pharmaceutical and diagnostic industries, we are constantly seeking new and better ways to support our customers’ research needs,” said Mikael Kubista, CEO and founder of TATAA Biocenter. “The new naica system with its unique 6-color detection is a great complement to our instrument platform and will be perfect for our powerful 2T-dPCR technology.”

The six-color naica^® system offers the highest multiplexing and detection capacity available on the market and is used by scientists across a wide range of research and clinical applications including cancer and liquid biopsy studies, cell and gene therapies, infectious disease detection, and food and environmental testing.

“We are thrilled that TATAA Biocenter has expanded its use of digital PCR on the naica system, as customers see the value of Stilla’s powerful, easy-to-use multiplexing technology,” said Philippe Mourere, President and CEO, Stilla Technologies.

TATAA Biocenter organizes hands-on training courses in molecular analyses globally. The naica platform will be available in TATAA's dPCR courses giving participants the opportunity to test and evaluate the new system head to head to the other dPCR platforms available at TATAA, under guidance of TATAA Biocenter's dPCR experts, to decide which serves their needs best.

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