• NuGEN Technologies (San Carlos, California), which develops RNA amplification and labeling systems, reported release of an application note detailing results of a U.S. government lab study in which NuGEN's Ovation Biotin system provided increased speed to results and higher specificity of hybridization on GeneChip probe arrays starting with as little as 50 nanograms of human whole blood total RNA. The study demonstrated the Ovation system yielded a significantly higher percentage of genes called present. Since the Ovation system generates cDNA rather than cRNA, hybridization to the DNA content on the Affymetrix GeneChip array results in greater specificity. The Ovation system enables researchers to amplify RNA from whole blood and hybridize the target without the need for globin reduction. This significantly reduces experimental time and the amount of bias introduced to the sample, the company said.

• ViaCell (Cambridge, Massachusetts) and Pall (East Hills, New York) reported the first FDA clearance of a cord blood collection bag suitable for use in a sterile field. ViaCell has exclusive rights to the new collection bag for family cord blood banking and expects to introduce it as part of its ViaCord collection kit. The sterile field bag provides the ability to more safely and easily collect umbilical cord blood from newborns, even when born by cesarean section. Pall products are used by leading cord blood transplant centers in the U.S.