Lawrence J. Wangh

Scientists in our laboratory have overcome the inherent limitations of symmetric PCR by developing an advanced form of asymmetric PCR, known as LATE-PCR. Symmetric PCR has been the dominant method of DNA amplification for the last 20 years. Each amplicon in such assays is generated by use of two primers of equal concentration and equal Tm (melting temperature) and is therefore double-stranded. Amplification proceeds exponentially, but then slows down and reaches plateau in a stochastic manner. Thus, although such reactions are well known and are often robust, they nevertheless suffer from limitations which are particularly evident in samples containing low numbers of initial targets. These limitations include: * Design difficulties, particularly for multiplexing * Reduced efficiency and sensitivity due to mis-priming * Variability among replicate reactions, particularly at end-point * Limited availability of fluorescent colors * Limitations in probe design * Requirement for hot-start enzymes * Costs LATE-PCR and Its Allied Technologies, including PrimeSafe, Lights-On/Light-Off Probes, and Dilute-N-Go Sequencing overcomes all of the above problems and makes it possible to construct highly-informative single tube assays using fluroescent probe in several colors. These assays make it possible to simultaneously scan multiple targets for sequence variations (i.e Virtual Sequencing in a closed-tube). Over the past 15 years we have worked with several large international diagnostic companies and have built numerous assays in the fields of human and animal infectious diseases, human cancers, forensics, drug side effects, species identification, prenatal and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. We have had over 10 million dollars of funding and have built a large patent portfolio.