Markets/product lines, from the prospectus (notice in the Biomarker category BDAL provides a solution when gene sequence not available):
We design our products to address the rapidly evolving needs of the life science industry. Public and private efforts to sequence the entire human genome have led to advances that are fueling further investment in the discovery and identification of single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, and other forms of genetic variation. These developments, combined with advances in combinatorial chemistry, which is the creation of libraries of chemical compounds, and in basic molecular biology and medical research, are spurring growth in the following rapidly developing and emerging areas:
- PHARMACOGENOMICS, which compares the genetic information of an individual
to the average human genome to predict the response of individual
patients and patient populations to drugs;
- PERSONALIZED MEDICINE, which seeks to apply inexpensive, rapid molecular
diagnostic tests, or assays, to profile a patient's genetic composition
and enable the prescription of individualized drug therapy;
- PROTEOMICS, which involves the large-scale separation, identification and
characterization of proteins in order to understand how proteins are
created based on the information contained in genes;
- NEW METHODS OF DRUG DISCOVERY, which are based on the rapid measurement,
or high-throughput screening, of large numbers of small organic compounds
synthesized through combinatorial chemistry against large numbers of
disease pathways, or targets, identified by genomics and proteomics;
- BIOMARKER DETECTION, OR BIO-BARCODING, which develops rapid and sensitive
assays for a broad range of cell and tissue types for applications
including infectious disease detection, human tissue assessment, the
identification of specific agricultural characteristics and pathogen
identification, even when the molecular mechanisms are not understood or
the genomic sequence is not available; and
- METABOLIC PROFILING, OR METABOLOMICS, which analyzes the levels of
substances produced by the metabolism, or metabolites, present in a cell
or in biological fluids to draw correlations between disease states,
genetic modifications and variations in metabolite levels.
In addition, increased levels of funding for basic medical research have fueled demand by universities, medical schools and government agencies for sophisticated bioanalytical systems, such as mass spectrometers. Funding has also increased for substance detection and pathogen identification systems for security and defense applications. |
