Swine Flu

Today the World Health Organization declared that the Swine Flu-(Influenza A(H1N1)- pandemic has reached 21 countries. The disease that is thought to have originated in Mexico has claimed 29 lives in the infection of 822 people in that country alone.

As San Diegans and as global citizens, Allele Biotech wishes to covey its sympathy to all people affected either directly or indirectly by this pandemic. As a company Allele Biotech is doing its part to help eradicate the existence of such an ominous virus that threatens people’s health and livelihoods. Recently Allele Biotech negotiated a deal with a distributor in Baja. The agreement that generated Allele Biotech De Mexico could not have come at a more fortuitous time. Our Baja researchers are feverishly working on this worldwide effort to elucidate, control, and prevent the A H1N1 that is currently affecting all of us.

Allele Biotech De Mexico is working in conjunction with Allele Biotech of San Diego to fight Swine Flu. On Friday, May 1, 2009 several researchers and technicians worked into the night on custom designed oligonucleotides that are being used right now to research this virus. We are thoroughly optimistic that this virus will soon be under control and we are honored we could help in this urgent endeavor.

Tags: A H1N1, A H1N1 pandemic, Allele Biotech researches swine flu, pandemic, Swine Flu Mexico

Happy Earth Day from Allele Biotech

It is Earth Day today and Allele Biotech wants to contribute to this important occasion by reminding us all of the things we can do as bench biologists to save our planet everyday.

The first and easiest thing everyone can do is to turn off lights, lab equipment, and office electronics at the end of the day or when not in use. Leaving a computer on overnight to avoid the painful two minute booting in the morning can cost up to $80 extra dollars in energy per computer per year! We are all guilty of squandering our energy and this is the cheapest and easiest way to significantly cut waste. Additionally, Allele can help cut electrical energy costs in your lab by supplying our compact, low energy, low cost laboratory equipment.

Second, if you work in a San Diego laboratory you can help the environment by purchasing laboratory supplies from a local company like Allele Biotech! Enable Green Thinking in your laboratory by purchasing locally and reducing greenhouse gasses and fuel use that would otherwise be generated from ordering from distant companies. Allele Biotech has 1000’s of products to choose from at low costs.

Third way to better our Earth (Allele’s Favorite) is recycling. We always reuse what we can and recycle what we cannot. It has been our longtime policy to collect boxes from other companies for recycling or repackaging. If you are a San Diego company that has extra Styrofoam boxes we will gladly pick them up and even pay you cash to take them off your hands!

Fourth, and very important, is to eliminate biowaste. As bench biologists, we have the power to do this by discerning what we throw away in the lab trash, especially those labeled as biowaste, radioactive waste, or chemical waste. It is so easy to throw the gloves boxes, plastic drinking bottles, or packaging materials in with all the culture tubes or chemicals when you are busy. However, taking the time to put these trash items into their correct receptacles is invaluable and imperative for the preservation of our Earth.

Fifth and last, if you worked on projects related to “green energy” as Obama called for today, congratulations, you are already making a difference to our environment. Get that algae to churn out some biofuel, quick!

Click here for tips on how to eliminate energy waste and even make money while doing so!!

Tags: Earth Day for Biotech Companies, environmentally conscious business, green business, green energy, President Obama calls for green energy, tips for saving money

iPS- #1 Breakthrough of 2008 Now at Allele!

Hailed as Science Magazine’s “#1 Breakthrough of the Year” for 2008, induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell research is proving to be the most promising means of worldwide disease comprehension and eradication since the discovery of penicillin. iPS research is moving fast and institutions are racing to make the coveted advancements to: reveal the triggering and oppressing mechanisms of the four pluripotency inducing genes, elucidate how a cell is assigned a role by investigating cell protein signaling pathways, and reduce possible side effects like cancerous tumors at iPS cell therapy sites. As an in vitro reagent, iPS cells, unlike human cell lines, can be easily maintained in the lab. By maintaining iPS cell lines from patients with diseases like Parkinson’s it is possible for researchers to examine disease pathology in an affected living cell in ways that cannot be done with in vivo cells. Thanks to induced pluripotency, these cell lines can be created with simple, non-invasive hair follicle procurements! Additionally, juxtaposed to the 10 years of controversy following the discovery of human embryonic stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells will not elicit the same moral or bioethical dilemmas followed by political interference due to their fully developed origin.

Author of Breakthrough of the Year: Reprogramming Cells, Gretchen Vogel stated, “…several more breakthroughs are needed before cellular reprogramming yields its first cure for disease.” Researchers must take advantage of Allele Biotech’s ground-breaking iPS product line. Our scientists have done all the preliminary work to design and construct these easy to use iPS kits to make this phenomenal field of study accessible to all. The global challenge for iPS discovery has begun!

Tags: Allele Biotech, induced pluripotent stem cells, iPS, ips stem cell lines, research kits, science and bioethics, Science Magazine Top Breakthroughs, scientific breakthrough 2008, stem cell controversey

Recycling in San Diego

Allele Biotech is proud to announce its dedication to recycling! It has been our longtime practice to reuse cardboard and styrofoam boxes, dry ice, and packaging insulation to minimize the waste generated in San Diego County. Not only are we committed to minimizing packaging waste but it is also a part of our weekly routine at Allele Biotech to transport all unusable cardboard, plastics, glass, and metal to the neighborhood recycling center. We take pride in maintaining Green business practices to better our environment and to help preserve our beautiful San Diego. We do not sell back these recyclables and happily absorb the cost of fuel and labor for transportation because we want to send the message that recycling is everyone’s responsibility.

We would enjoy getting other companies involved in reuse and recycling! If there are any companies in the local San Diego City area that would like to drop off styrofoam boxes or have any tips on how to improve local business recycling programs then we are eager to hear about it!

Tags: environmentally conscious business, green business, recycling and biotechnology, reuse packaging materials, San Diego recycling

Episomal Expression of iPS Inducing Genes — No Trace of Transgenes Afterwards

The potential use of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) in basic research and therapeutics is still mostly on the level of imagination. However, few doubt that this field will be one of the most actively contested and fastest evolving research topics in recent history. It reminds me of the early days of RNAi discovery, when 5 papers on DNA-based shRNA/RNAi appeared within a span of a few days (one draft from the Allele team was considered a few days too late to catch up with Nature Biotech by Science, but in the end we were the only recipient of patents on the subject).

The latest big news is a publication in Science by Junying Yu et al in the Thomson lab, who induced human iPS by using OriP/EBNA1 plasmid vector [1]. This method avoids integration of transgenes into the genome, thus reducing the risk of causing mutations.

A bit about the background: OriP/EBNA1 system originated from Epstein-Bar virus, which allows the establishment of stable episomes at 5-20 copies per cell, and duplication occurs once per cell division.

There are very few suppliers of vectors with the OriP/EBNA1, because of low demand (I was told so by the only supplier at the time, which explains why it was terminated altogether). The Phoenix™ Retrovirus system (for pdf from Orbigen, now part of Allele download from here) actually has the complete episomal cassette on the packing vector pBMN, which if not used in packaging Eco or Ampho cells, will behave as a regular plasmid. Therefore, the Retrovirus based iPS product within Allele’s iPS product group will provide two systems in one: a retroviral vector as published by Takahashi et al, and a OriP/EBNA1 system by Yu et al. They will also contain the brightest green fluorescent protein, mWasabi.

1. Yu, J., et al., Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Free of Vector and Transgene Sequences. Science, 2009.

Tags: adenovirus, episomal, Epstein-Barr nuclear antigen-1, exogenous reprogramming factors, free of vector, human stem cells, iPS, lentivirus, OriP/EBNA1, plasmid vectors, retrovirus, without integration