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Courtesy of TrimGen

If you are not lucky enough to have a restriction enzyme site in your mutation-of-interest, chances are you have had to fall back on sequencing to detect it. But this time-consuming method of detecting mutations could soon be a thing of the past, thanks to new technology called Mutector from Sparks, Md.-based TrimGen http://www.trimgen.com.

According to marketing manager Brad Oswald, Mutector eliminates false positives and negatives and produces results in 2–3 hours, compared with the 6–8 hours required for sequencing. And at around $4 per test, it is less expensive than sending DNA out to a sequencing facility.

"We really like the technology," says David Sidransky, director of head and neck cancer research at Johns Hopkins University; he has been using Mutector to detect BRAF gene mutations in biopsy specimens of suspected thyroid tumors. "This technique is not only accurate, it is also quick, efficient,...

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