Your Feedback Helps Us Move Forward

It seems like every week Allele Biotech has a blog entry introducing a new product, or some cutting edge research. What is often overlooked is the driving force toward this innovation, and that force is you, the customer. As a company we work to make products that address our customer needs while maintaining competitive pricing.

In order to continue these practices we rely on customer feedback. What differentiates Allele Biotech from other companies is how we react to customer input, we use it to innovate. A great example of this is Allele Mouse Tail Lysis Buffer, a product we created at the request of a customer. This customer wanted an alternative to using phenol, a potentially hazardous chemical. We were able to create our buffer which works efficiently and effectively to lyse DNA safely. Today Mouse Tail Lysis Buffer is one of our top selling reagents, but we still love to hear back from our customers about it. Other examples of customer initiated products are our Cre Lentivirus, and our Protein extraction buffer. The Cre Lentivirus was requested to give the end user a high titer virus stock for applying Cre recombinase to their MEFS. Protein Extraction Buffer was created at the behest of a customer who wanted a low cost, but high quality alternative to B-Per.

So next time you are in lab and realize you need something, or can improve upon a product send us an email. If you are already using something from Allele let us know if the protocol is unclear, or if it’s too long. Tell us if it was an easy product to use, or if it was a tedious process that can be improved upon. We want to know that our products are working for you, and that you are satisfied with your purchase from Allele Biotech. With this back and forth between company and customer we can build the ideal client relationship.

New Product of the Week 070510-071110: Pre-cutted pLICO-RNAi-Reporter, 20 reactions, ABP-HL-SE30020 $599.00

Promotion of the Week 070510-071110: buy Sapphire baculo genomic DNA get insect cells at half price.

Tags: Baculo genomic DNA, cre, customer beedback, customer opinions, insect cell transfection, mouse tail genotyping, protein extraction

Introducing Product-on-Demand Biological Research Reagents

The general order of operations in the bioreagent industry begins with a developer observing or forecasting a need and developing a product. The supplier then supplies that product to customers by showing that the product will suit their existing needs. An alternative order in our industry is after a new discovery in the form an enzyme reaction mechanism, affinity binding, or biological system is made in lab, someone realizes that discovery could be made into a product. If the idea is picked up by a commercial R&D team, the underlining mechanisms of the discovery are then exploited for particular use and reagents or kits will be built around it. The new products are introduced to the market by convincing potential users that they will make their research better, cheaper, or faster.

From a supplier’s point of view, if the current processes for developing new products have been working, what’s the incentive to change? From a researcher’s point of view, well, do they have any other choices? If something is not commercially available, someone will just make it in the lab if they need it. Some of us still remember the days when a graduate student needed to make his own restriction enzyme because NEB didn’t sell it. However, there is a disconnect between how much new knowledge is being gained every single day in tens of thousands of labs and how small a portion of that knowledge pool is being turned into more powerful tools to make the next round of research easier and more cost-effective. For instance, when an important gene’s promoter is recently defined by a functional study in 293T cells, how soon do you expect to test the signals that influence transcription from that promoter in the primary cells you are working on? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could simply buy a vector that will express a promoter-driven reporter ready to be introduced into the primary cells in your lab instead of having a graduate student design, construct, learn and try to make a lentiviral vector in the next few months?

And yes, there is the route called custom projects provided by a few bioreagent companies. The prices are often inhibiting for the reasons that the price needs to cover for labor on industry pay scale, materials, indirect, and profit. Additionally, since the service provider does not take ownership of the product, the work of researching the relevant pathways and making construct designs is left to the user.

There is a better way. A company can plan product groups, lines, and packages based solely on the demonstrated importance of a system such as signal pathway or a family of molecules like miRNA. The plan can project to use the most advanced technologies, even accompanied with full product descriptions and vector maps. However, it would be a great waste of money and material if nobody would ever need it, right? One way of dealing with the initial cost is that we make the first kit upon the first order. The customer that places the first order of a new product will get a deep discount off the shelf-product price on what used to be a custom project. They might even have the opportunity to provide input on the product design prior to production. From a supplier side, we will benefit by having an opportunity to initiate a new product without major investment, which in turn would keep our overall prices low for such innovative and advanced products.

This model should help speed up the commercial application of any new biological findings, lower the cost and price of bioreagent products, and encourage interaction between researchers who normally do not work with each other to produce better products for increasing the efficiency of research.

Discount of the week 060110-060710: Any virus packaging project initiated this week gets additional 10% discount that can be used with first time discount and other pricing advantages. http://www.allelebiotech.com/allele3/Services_Lentiviral_Retroviral_Packaging.php

New product of the week 060110-060710: Columns for Miniprep and Gel Purification, ABP-PP-COLM100. If you can make your own buffers or have leftovers from any miniprep or gel purification kits, get these high capacity columns and lower your costs by up to 70%!

Tags: bioreagent, biotech, biotechnology, Clontech, EMS, Invitrogen, kits, Merck, Millipore, NEB, promega, reagents, research field, Roche, Stratagene, tools

Take Advantage of Allele’s Essential Virus Grant Program, Have High Titer Virus for Your Research on Essential Human Genes

The number of Allele products in the form of viral particles is increasing quickly. Most of these products are also listed under product groups categorized according to their respective functions (e.g. iPS production under “Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells”, shRNA under “RNA Interference”, cytokines and enzymes under “Recombinant Proteins”). Additional background information, as well as related products, may be found on the landing pages of each product group.

The increase in scientific publications reporting the conversion of “dormant” genes into “active” ones has resulted in a significant demand for cDNA clones, antibodies, expression vectors, etc., all in short order. Providing reagents for the expansion of research on such genes is scientifically important and potentially rewarding if the market catches up. Allele Biotech works diligently to supply the most up-to-date and active researchers with pre-validated viral particles for expressing many of these “hot” genes, (e.g. iPS factors, light-activated ion channels, factors that induce neuronal cells from other cell types). Allele Biotech produces custom-packaged high titer lentivirus and retrovirus using unique technologies, as described under “Services by Category”-> “Viral Packaging”.
Under the Essential Virus Grant Program, Allele Biotech accepts custom viral packaging orders, including cDNA of shRNAs against recently established critical mammalian factors. The process begins with an evaluation of your one page application explaining why the factor can potentially be in demand by other researchers. If the application is accepted, Allele Biotech will waive the charges for the project and consider it an R&D effort. Allele Biotech will also offer it as a shelf product at a much lower cost than custom projects. Interested researchers please submit your applications with your order; our accounting department will promptly forward your request to our review group.

New Product of the Week 05-03-10 to 05-09-10: Essential Virus Grant Program

Promotion of the Week 05-03-10 to 05-09-10: for a limited time, pre-packaged, validated IL2 and IL15 lentiviruses. http://www.allelebiotech.com/shopcart/index.php?c=206&sc=0

Tags: cDNA, essential genes, lentivirus, miRNA, promoter reporter, virus packaging

Submit Your Pictures and Enter to Win $100 in Cash

Allele Biotech is holding another fun contest to give back to our loyal supporters and everyone has the chance to win $100 in cash! We are looking for interesting and relevant pictures, illustrations, and computer generated art that pertains to any Allele Biotech Product or service to replace the flashes on our homepage. If it is chosen to be used we will give you $100 cash!

Check out our technical data sheets, read our past blogs, and even use your own lab experience and impressions with Allele Biotech Products to come up with your entry. There are over 1000 products to choose from so everyone should have lots of inspiration!

All you have to do to enter is submit your picture to our facebook inbox! The picture has to be of your own creation and/or one to which you own exclusive rights. Response time and prizes will take about a week.

Let your creative juices flow and you could get $100 in return. Your picture could be funny, serious, or even super nerdy!

Used to promote our Sapphire(TM) Baculovirus Expression Service

All photos, illustrations, and computer generated graphics (aka. “the picture”) submitted must be lawfully owned by entrants who submitted them. Pictures that are not chosen will not be used in any way by Allele Biotech. Winners may collect their prize via cash, check, or a one-time Allele credit of $100 good toward any Allele Biotech purchase. Allele Biotech has full rights to pictures selected for use in Allele advertising and winners must forfeit any future rights to the picture. Contest to run indefinitely and to be terminated at any time.

Tags: cash prize, contest, submit pics for cash, win $100

Allele Biotech is 10 Years Old and Celebrating with FREE Oligos!

Allele Biotech is 10 years old!!!!!!! December 1999 was when Dr. Jiwu Wang and colleagues started this great company as a DNA oligo and siRNA service provider to the San Diego area. Since then he has fearlessly lead Allele into the forefront of the biotechnology industry with multiple RNAi patents, numerous NIH grants, revolutionary iPSC and fluorescent protein technologies, the acquisition of Orbigen, a continuously growing catalog of over 1000 molecular biology products and signature Allele Biotech Reagents, and a business culture that is approachable, encouraging, and reverential of research advancement through global communication and collaboration.

What a difference a decade makes. Today Allele Biotech is a top oligo service provider all around the country with customers in all of America’s major academic institutions. Currently, we are the sole oligo provider on the University of California San Diego’s central purchasing site, Marketplace; a collaboration designed to provide top quality oligonucleotides to UCSD research departments while saving them thousands of dollars annually. We now produce many of our own oligo synthesis and modification reagents, further cutting the costs to our valuable customers which enabled us to continue operations this last year without raising prices due to the worldwide acetonitrile shortage which more than quadrupled in cost! Allele Biotech has stood out over the years not only to our loyal customers but other oligo providers as well. Less than 5 years into our operation we were approached by one of the well known, top three, oligo providers in an attempt to buy us out! We resisted and are still here to proudly serve the research community with the Allele brand!

It all started with oligos…Now ten years later we want to honor our accomplishment by giving away a FREE month of oligos to one lucky customer! To enter you must be an Allele Biotech Facebook fan or friend. A winner will be randomly selected from our friends/fan pool on Sunday, February 14th, 1210 at noon. That lucky winner will receive FREE oligos for the month of March 2010! Limitations apply. Click here for terms and conditions.

Tags: 10 year with Allele Biotech, 10th anniversary promotion, anniversary promotion, FREE oligos, oligo services