Companies will Combine DNAble™ and Array Tape™ Technologies for Revolutionary Qualitative and Quantitative Nucleic Acid Analysis Solutions

Portland, Maine, July 23, 2012 –EnviroLogix announced today (July 23) that it has signed a collaborative agreement with Douglas Scientific to develop and optimize solutions for high throughput real time and endpoint nucleic acid analysis. The companies will leverage and build upon EnviroLogix’ revolutionary isothermal DNAble®v2.0 chemistry and Douglas Scientific’s disruptive Array Tape™ Platform.

The DNAble isothermal amplification and detection technology represents a new paradigm in real time nucleic acid analysis and has the potential to impact the world of molecular biology. This new DNAble assay solution developed by EnviroLogix delivers results equivalent to qPCR in less than 10 minutes with the demonstrated ability to utilize crude sample preparations. These attributes make this solution equally valuable for point-of-use testing as well as extremely high throughput applications.

“The substantial improvement in throughput with DNAble alone is significant, but when combined with the Douglas Scientific Array Tape solutions it becomes revolutionary,” said Dan Malmstrom, President and COO of Douglas Scientific. “By partnering with EnviroLogix, we can provide end-to-end qualitative and quantitative nucleic acid testing automation solutions that break the current paradigms of qPCR.”

DNAble is a very rapid, highly specific isothermal nucleic acid amplification technology that can amplify both RNA and DNA targets with single base resolution a billion-fold in 5-10 minutes at a single and constant temperature. It features EnviroLogix’ next generation DNAble, v2.0 chemistry. The proprietary chemistry produces highly specific, rapid, multiplexed, quantitative results rivaling qPCR. Unlike PCR, DNAble can amplify a target sequence from a crude sample preparation and do so with minimal equipment. DNAble’s unique amplification process begins with a nicking enzyme that nicks the DNA structure at specific recognition sites. A polymerase then extends from the “nicked” site displacing the original opened single strand. These single strands hybridize with both the forward and reverse DNAble templates and the reaction begins to occur at an exponential rate yielding a detectable target in less than 10 minutes.

“We are delighted to be associated with a fast-paced, growing organization like Douglas Scientific, and believe that this will be a winning combination of chemistry and engineering” said Bruce Ferguson, President and CEO of EnviroLogix. “PCR was once a fledgling technology and now is the gold standard. That is how we view DNAble. Combined with the power of Douglas Scientific’s automated high throughput equipment, DNAble brings a game-changing technological breakthrough in real time quantitative molecular diagnostics.”

Array Tape™ is a continuous polymer strip, serially embossed with reaction wells in customized volumes and formats. With miniaturized reaction wells, this thin (0.3 mm) and flexible solution allows 200 microplate equivalents (76,800 reaction wells) to be spooled onto a single, compact reel. It is an automated, adaptable microplate replacement for high throughput screening.

Douglas Scientific provides inline, modular instrumentation that is fully integrated and optimized for use with Array Tape™ including Nexar® liquid handling and assay processing system, Soellex® thermal cycler, Araya® fluorescent detection instrumentation and software solutions. The platform enables a continuous reel-to-reel process flow to maximize throughput and reduce costs.