Bench Buys

Until December 31, 2001, Amersham Pharmacia Biotech of Piscataway, N.J., is offering a free 24-reaction Ready-To-Go™ PCR beads kit with the purchase of a Ready-To-Run™ separation unit. The new Ready-To-Run separation unit is an agarose gel electrophoresis system for the rapid screening of PCR products. The system is expandable for higher- throughput applications. Ready-To-Go PCR beads are room-temperature stable beads preformulated for standard PCR, containing Taq DNA polymerase, nucleotides, and buffer. To receive the free kit, reference quote number WB0002.

Amersham Pharmacia Biotech
(800) 526-3593
www.apbiotech.com

The new S.N.A.P.™ UV-Free Gel Purification Kit from Carlsbad, Calif.-based Invitrogen eliminates the need to use UV light, which can nick and damage DNA, to visualize DNA in agarose gels. The kit uses a crystal violet staining reagent instead of ethidium bromide, allowing bands to be viewed under ambient light; it includes enough reagent to visualize 25 gels and has a list price of $115.

Invitrogen
(800) 955-6288
www.invitrogen.com

This week's installment of Bench Buys surveyed prices for Coomassie^® Brilliant Blue stain, R-250. Prices were normalized to 10 g for comparison. ICN Biomedicals of Costa Mesa, Calif., had the best deal, offering 100 g for $65.00.

ICN Biomedicals
(800) 854-0530
www.icnbiomed.com

Coomassie Blue Stain Survey (averaged for 10 g):
Average Price: $9.75
Low Price: $6.50
High Price: $19.80
Sample Group: 10