NuProbe Licensed Two Technologies from Rice University, Launched Nanopore AML multi-gene panel
HOUSTON, June 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — NuProbe, a global precision molecular diagnostics company, announces the world-wide exclusive in-license of two technologies from Rice University. The first, Non-Extensible Oligonucleotides (NEO), will allow NuProbe to provide much more rapid development of customized NGS panels, with turnaround time of less than 4 weeks. The second, Linear DNA Assembly (LDA) technology, improves the effective throughput of nanopore sequencing by up to 10-fold for short DNA, such as DNA extracted from FFPE tumor tissues and cell-free DNA from peripheral blood. Concurrently, NuProbe announces the launch of its new VarMap™ Nanopore product line.
“Rice University is committed to supporting the invention and commercialization of technologies with the potential to positively impact the world,” says Asha Rajagopal, Ph.D., Director of Rice University Office of Technology Transfer. “Our Office of Technology Transfer is excited to work with NuProbe, and we look forward to seeing these technologies being applied to clinical settings to improve human health.”
“The affordability and portability of nanopore sequencing greatly decrease the barrier to entry for high-throughput sequencing for clinical laboratories,” said David Zhang, Ph.D., Co-founder of and Head of Innovation at NuProbe, and Associate Professor of Bioengineering at Rice University. “The LDA and NEO technologies allow NuProbe to develop affordable and ultrasensitive oncology panels for applications such as minimal residual disease monitoring.”
The NEO and LDA technologies complement the Blocker Displacement Amplification (BDA) technology that NuProbe previously licensed from Rice University in 2017. NuProbe’s new VarMap™ Nanopore product line is based on both the BDA and LDA technologies, and allows high-throughput sequencing-based detection of somatic mutations from DNA with a turnaround time of 10 hours from DNA to results. The first VarMap™ Nanopore panel announced is for multi-gene analysis of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and enables detection of mutations in genes such as FLT3, DNMT3A, and NPM1 at 0.1% variant allele frequency.
About NuProbe Global
NuProbe is a cutting-edge precision molecular diagnostics company with revolutionary molecular diagnostic technologies to reduce the cost of NGS by over 50-fold, and improve the sensitivity of qPCR, Sanger, and nanopore sequencing by over 100-fold. NuProbe has sites in Houston, USA, Shanghai, China and Suzhou, China. NuProbe’s vision is to offer affordable, timely, and accurate disease state information to enable precision medicine and improve patient outcomes.
