Introduction

Molecular diagnostics involves the collection, transport and analysis of biological specimens for the diagnosis of patient health or disease regimes. Biological materials such as DNA and RNA are extracted from bio-specimens such as blood, saliva or buccal swabs collected from individual patients and used for analysis. It is critical to stabilize these biological materials at collection site and during transportation to the laboratory prior to analysis which can take some time. Current approaches use cold-freezing and cold-shipping which are cost-prohibitive and require the use of harzardous shipping materials.

Biomatrica offers new technologies to preserve and protect these samples at ambient conditions, allowing a cost-effective shipping method that completely removes the use of high-cost shipping and packaging materials. Biomatrica is developing a new line of products – termed the “Gard“ which is designed to rapidly stabilize nucleic acids in cells, tissue, biopsy material, saliva, and blood samples. These products protect samples from degradation at room temperature, and fit directly into the point of care workflow and offer the ability to transport biological materials with increased quality enabling forensics, biobanking, research and molecular diagnostics pre-analytics market without the need for refrigeration.

Pre-Analytics

Pre-analytics is often defined as "all the processes that occur before analysis - sample collection, sample shipping, sample storage and sample preparation for analysis". Biomatrica's "Gard" product line has been designed to rapidly stabilize nucleic acids in cells, tissue, biopsy materials, blood and saliva samples. Below is a general workflow for the Gard product line:

General Workflow for the Gard Product Line picture

Within this workflow, we offer ambient-based biopreservation of blood, saliva and tissue, from collection and shipping to laboratory analysis. These products are for research use only, and not for use in diagnostic procedures.

Biomatrica Products for the Diagnostics market

Biomatrica has developed a range of products for room temperature stabilization and shipping of tissues, cells, biopsy materials, blood or bacterial strains from collection site to the laboratory for analysis. Some of these products are listed below, including some pending release(s):

	Collect, preserve and purify RNA from whole blood samples.
	Collect, preserve and ship DNA in saliva samples at ambient temperatures.
	Collect, stabilize, ship and store DNA from whole blood samples at ambient conditions.
	Room temperature stabilization of unextracted DNA in tissue, cell lines and biopsy materials

Scientific References

Wilkinson, S, et. al., Gene expression and genomic DNA analysis of ambient whole blood stabilization, Poster presentation at the 2011 CHI Molecular Medicine Tri-conference, San Francisco, CA.
Wilkinson, S., et. al., Innovative technology to stabilize DNA at room temperature in tissues and cells, Poster presentation at the 2010 Experimental Biology Conference, Anaheim, CA.
Wilkinson, S., et. al., Impact of collection, stabilization and isolation of bovine ear punches on high and low density genotyping arrays, Poster presentation at the 2010 International Society of Animal Genomics, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Contact

For more information about Biomatrica products please contact us at contact@biomatrica.com or call 1-858-550-0308.