The German Cancer Research Center Investigates the Role of miRNAs in Carcinogenesis Using febit’s Geniom RT Analyzer

The German Cancer Research Center, also known as DKFZ, in Heidelberg (Germany) chose febit´s newly introduced Geniom^® RT Analyzer to investigate the association of microRNAs (miRNAs) and cancer.

miRNAs are small pieces of RNA with a maximum length of 23 nucleotides, which have become an important focus of life-science research in the past couple of years. Since they do not encode any proteins, they remained largely unappreciated for many decades. Recently, however, scientists began to realize their crucial role in the regulation of intracellular events such as differentiation or apoptosis of cells. The number of miRNA being discovered is growing by the day.

DKFZ scientists therefore searched for a technology that would allow them to keep pace with the rapidly evolving miRNA databases, continually incorporating the latest information into their research on the role of miRNAs in carcinogenesis. The newly developed Geniom RT Analyzer ideally meets this requirement: it exploits freely configurable biochips produced on demand at febit for microarray analysis of miRNA profiles in biological samples.

“Our positive experience with the flexibility of febit´s Geniom contributed to our decision to use the new Geniom RT Analyzer,” said Joerg Hoheisel, director of the DKFZ Functional Genome Analysis Division. “Preliminary tests indicate an excellent quality of microarray analysis. In addition, my team is enthusiastic about the straight-forward operation and outstanding efficiency of the instrument.”

In addition to flexibility, the Geniom RT Analyzer offers a high degree of automation and numerous user-friendly features: all steps in the workflow, including sample addition, hybridization, staining, washing, shaking and detection, are performed in one single instrument requiring a minimum of operator time. The efficient operation results with minimal error rates and offer consistent experimental parameters providing highly reproducible results. Data read out by the Geniom Wizard software may then be analyzed with standard software solutions.

In addition to miRNA analysis, the Geniom RT Analyzer offers a variety of other high-performance applications. For example, a patented biochip protocol enables the fragmentation and sorting of large genomes in smaller well-defined fractions. Without this essential fractionation step, the complexity of the genomic DNA would preclude any effective analysis. These may then serve as samples in mutation analysis and high-throughput sequencing with next-generation sequencers.