Why Allele?

Allele provides you with tools that you will find very helpful. The two main motives for Allele developed products are:
1) To incorporate the most advanced technologies in the field
2) To provide equal utility as other companies’ equivalent products at a much more reasonable cost.

How did we do it? By developing technologies internally, in most cases with government grant funding, by in-licensing others’ discoveries, and by listening to you, our customers.

What else do we do? Conduct basic curiosity-driven research just like most of our customers. It helps to stay on the edge and connect to the community.

Use of fetal bovine serum (FBS) Part I, choosing your batch

The maintenance of cell, tissue, and organ from various sources in ex vivo cultures is one of the most important aspects in the bioscience, medicine, and biotechnology industries. Successful cell cultures are largely dependent on the use of fetal bovine serum (FBS) as a common supplement. FBS is an extremely complex mixture of unknown composition. It is found to provide:
1. Growth stimulating and regulating factors for cell growth, proliferation, and differentiation
2. Various protein components for cell attachment and spreading
3. Transport factors for carrying other molecules
4. BSA, antitrypsin, apolipoproteins, antitoxin factors, and other stabilizing factors
5. Vitamins, fatty acids, lipids, and others molecules that can have eff¬ects on pH, free radical scavenging [1], cell signaling, etc.

When choosing FBS, one needs to be keenly aware that the serum is a supplement of still unknown composition, which is known to have the following problems:
1. It contains ambiguous factors exerting eff¬ects on cells that are difficult to analyze [2].
2. The batch-to-batch variability complicates culture conditions and data interpretation [3].
3. It is an animal product that may contain endotoxins, hemoglobin, and factor adverse to intended use of culture.
4. It may carry contaminants such as microplasmas, fungi, bacteria, viruses, and prions.
5. The high protein contents of FBS make downstream processing of pharmaceutical production difficult and costly [4].

It is therefore important to find and test a supplier or even batches for one that works well with a particular cell type, especially when one has just started working with the cells. AlleleVaid FBS is an excellent choice for most of your cell culture needs.

References
1. Kume, T., N. Asai, H. Nishikawa, N. Mano, T. Terauchi, R. Taguchi, H. Shirakawa, F. Osakada, H. Mori, N. Asakawa, M. Yonaga, Y. Nishizawa, H. Sugimoto, S. Shimohama, H. Katsuki, S. Kaneko, and A. Akaike, Isolation of a diterpenoid substance with potent neuroprotective activity from fetal calf serum. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 2002. 99(5): p. 3288-93.
2. Barnes, D., W.L. McKeehan, and G.H. Sato, Cellular endocrinology: integrated physiology in vitro. In Vitro Cell Dev Biol, 1987. 23(10): p. 659-62.
3. Ye, X. and R. Lotan, Potential misinterpretation of data on diff¬erential gene expression in normal and malignant cells in vitro. Brief Funct Genomic Proteomic, 2008. 7(4): p. 322-6.
4. Wang, Y., G. Lu, W.P. Wong, J.F. Vliegenthart, G.J. Gerwig, K.S. Lam, G.J. Cooper, and A. Xu, Proteomic and functional characterization of endogenous adiponectin purified from fetal bovine serum. Proteomics, 2004. 4(12): p. 3933-42.


Part II, work to replace FBS altogether, check back to see the post here later.

AlleleValid FBS (www.allelebiotech.com/allele3/TC_FBS.php) batches come from North American sources that Allele Biotech has access to inspect, and each batch is tested on different insect and mammalian cells in actual experiments scientists perform daily at our own facility.

Our Message to Our Followers

What we at Allele Biotech see ourselves doing in the sense of fulfilling an obligation to the society and our peers in scientific research: Salvation and success through innovation and diligence, reaching for a place of efficient sustainability where monopolies do not win and ordinary people have the chance to realize their dreams.

We don’t believe in dominance by a few big boys, because we don’t believe that they can provide researchers with the best value. We want people that deal with us to see that there is room for development by an individual or a small group of highly dedicated and talented persons, as your own group in academia or a small company can do. This is the beauty of our industry and our field.

We like to see our people challenge existing doctrine and hypothesize new ones, after all, isn't that how we are trained through grad school and postdoc training, but somehow and somewhere it starts to seem to difficult to do, especially when you try to get a paper accepted or a grant rated among the top 10%. We don’t want to lose our edge, even if we have to learn to better place it. We will continue to move this way, and we want you to come along for the ride.

Put your fluorescence in perspective and know your true RT-PCR results with these Specialty Oligos from Allele Biotech!

Allele is now distributing to its customers the newest technology in RT-PCR published less than two weeks ago. It is a RT PCR probe that utilizes fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) and TaqMan methods in order to provide an internal positive control (IPC) for real-time PCR assays. This new RT-PCR method consists of forward and reverse primers, a regular TaqMan probe, and the new triple-labeled FRET-TaqMan Probe affixed to a plasmid, which negates the uncertainty in the presence and effects of amplification inhibitors that could generate a false negative in your experiments. Two emission sources are all that are required for the FAM and Cy5.5 fluorescence signals at 530 nm and 705 nm respectively. You do not need color compensation software, multiple excitation sources, or even a high tech laser to initiate excitation with this system.

If your RT PCR instrument only has one light source to excite the fluorophore then the FRET-TaqMan method is the only way to exploit the IPC technology. Fortunately Allele Biotech is selling these triple-labeled probes at a great price! Put your fluorescence in perspective and know your true RT-PCR results with these Specialty Oligos from Allele Biotech!