Custom bead service used for field-based DNA security marking
CARDIFF, UK, June 27, 2007 -- Q Chip Ltd, a leading developer of microencapsulation solutions, announces a new collaboration with TraceTag™ International to develop custom ReaX™ beads for security marking and tracing of fuel. Developed in Q Chip's Custom Bead Synthesis laboratories in Cardiff, UK, the innovative gel-based ReaX beads will encapsulate all the TraceTag reagents required to perform PCR in a single dose.
Smuggling of fuel is a major problem in many parts of the world with varying tax regimes in neighboring countries providing an enormous incentive to smugglers. TraceTag provides a state-of-art fuel marking and verification system by adding covert DNA markers to the petroleum products. The markers are totally secure and are invisible to the naked eye and cannot be replicated or removed commercially.
The customized ReaX 'Lab-in-a-Bead' tailored specifically to TraceTag's system is in a ready-to-use format, liberating the PCR test from the traditional laboratory environment and allowing it to be performed in the field using portable systems.
The ReaX beads standardize and streamline PCR set-up and allow untrained operators to set up PCR reactions in the field and still obtain highly reproducible results.
Using the TraceTag ReaX custom bead means that fuel verification is quick and extremely accurate so that the origin of the fuel and its fiscal status can be established in real time, allowing authorities to resolve the legitimacy of the fuel.
Custom ReaX beads can be manufactured with the primers of choice, any preferred Taq polymerase (including Hot Start enzymes) and the desired fluorescent chemistry. This gives customers complete flexibility compared to existing liquid or lyophilized reagents.
"This is a novel and exciting application for our ReaX custom bead which allows DNA analysis to be performed successfully by non-experts in the field providing valuable product verification" said Dr Nanette Bartram, Product Manager. "We are also looking to apply customized ReaX bead technology to determine the product provenance in other industries, such as food and cosmetics."
In 2004 Q Chip developed the world's first fully-functioning MicroPlant™ platform for the production of commercial volumes of uniform, precisely-loaded microcapsules using a wide range of biocompatible polymers.
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