To help labs pursue more sustainable practices, Thermo Fisher Scientific
has launched a next generation Invitrogen™ TaqMan™ Cells-to-CT™ Express Kit,
offering simplified, scalable workflows for gene expression analysis that
produce less plastic waste. With improved chemistry, the Cells-to-CT Express
Kit helps facilitate the preparation of cell lysates for reverse transcription
(RT) real-time PCR (qPCR) in just five minutes. RT-qPCR is commonly performed to support gene expression analysis, which
compares the expression of genes between two or more samples and can help
researchers determine gene expression targets for additional study. In turn,
gene expression analysis can enable and guide more efficient drug development
research. With the Cells-to-CT Express Kit, researchers can measure relative gene
expression while skipping the traditional RNA purification step when performing
RT-qPCR. Instead, with only five minutes of prep time required, they can go
directly from cultured cells to RT-qPCR. This not only promotes a faster
workflow overall, with results delivered from an entire plate of cells in 70
minutes, but also reduces the plastic waste generated from the process. With the Cells-to-CT Express Kit, the amount of waste generated is
approximately 8.1 grams of plastic. In contrast, with a traditional RNA
purification kit, the waste generated is approximately 106.9 grams. This is
equivalent to a 92.4 percent reduction in plastic waste when using the
Cells-to-CT Express Kit. “As part of Thermo Fisher’s mission to enable our customers to make the
world healthier, cleaner, and safer, we have developed the new Invitrogen
TaqMan Cells-to-CT Express Kit. Using a fast and streamlined workflow,
this innovative kit generates consistent and highly sensitive results enabling
drug developers to get new treatments to market faster. Additionally, it
is estimated that labs worldwide produce a combined 5.5 million tons of plastic
waste each year. The TaqMan Cells to Ct Express Kit has been designed to
reduce plastic waste by greater than 92 percent, helping labs transition to
more sustainable practices,” said Ellie Mahjubi, vice president and general
manager of sample preparation, Thermo Fisher Scientific.