OptiGene Limited was formed in 2008 to develop and deliver advanced molecular diagnostics solutions for applications across a range of market sectors. The company is privately owned and is based in Horsham in the South of England, close to Gatwick Airport and within an hour of Heathrow Airport and the centre of London.
OptiGene was established with the primary goal of providing the highest quality instrumentation and performance-leading reagents to support isothermal amplification of DNA and RNA. The market pull for this venture came from the growing demands around the world for field testing, rapid results and point-of-care diagnostics. OptiGene has developed innovative products that support sensitive and specific detection of bacteria and viruses for use in the fields of plant health, food safety, veterinary medicine, environmental monitoring and healthcare.
Bio-defence and forensics are also key markets that OptiGene addresses, either directly or through its growing network of international distributors. The company has exploited its expertise in both instrument design and enzymology to develop a sophisticated open platform that will support all isothermal amplification methods. Ultra-sensitive molecular detection that has been constrained to laboratory use by highly-qualified personnel and taking hours to complete can now be deployed to the point of application and run with very little training, producing results in single minutes.
If you are looking for advanced molecular diagnostics solutions for applications across a range of market sectors, OptiGene offers a range of products to support and enhance your isothermal amplification protocols.
The Genie II
This instrument is the flagship product of OptiGene and has been in full production since the spring of 2011. Genie® II is a compact, lightweight and robust instrument suitable for use in the field or laboratory. It was specifically designed to run any isothermal amplification method that employs target detection by fluorescence measurement. The device has two heating blocks, each of which takes a single 8-microtube strip that was specially designed for the instrument.
The tubes feature locking caps that do not open after a run, so preventing any contamination. The blocks can be controlled independently or run together for processing up to 16-samples. The instrument boasts low power requirements and includes a rechargeable Lithium-Polymer battery that can keep it running for a full working day. Genie II is now found in a variety of diagnostic settings around the world. It is supported by specially-designed plastic strips that have lockable caps and that are easy to handle.
Genie ® HT
Genie ® HT is a new product from OptiGene and was developed specifically for high-throughput environments offering diagnostic testing based on isothermal amplification methods. As with the smaller Genie ® instruments, the Genie ® HT can be fully controlled from its embedded touchscreen and also uses the custom 8-microtube Genie ® Strip. This system was designed to be modular and can be procured with any number of sample blocks installed up to a maximum of 12. Instruments delivered with less than 12 blocks may be upgraded at any time. The Genie ® HT offers full random access with any blocks used at any time, without requiring a computer.
Isothermal Mastermix
OptiGene’s Isothermal Mastermixes allow real-time fluorescence detection of amplified DNA and RNA on the Genie® II and Genie® III platforms. Mixes are also suitable for generic qPCR instrumentation. An anneal curve can be generated post amplification to confirm the amplification product; eliminating the need for gel electrophoresis or turbidity detection; essential for a closed-tube system.
OptiGene’s isothermal mastermixes are fully licensed for LAMP by Eiken Chemical Company and suitable for alternative isothermal amplification technologies.
Proprietary and patented reagents offer the fastest reaction times available.
LAMP Designer
OptiGene offers a software application that is used to design efficient primers for Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification, or LAMP, assays. LAMP is an isothermal DNA amplification method invented by the Eiken Chemical Company Ltd of Japan and can be used to amplify a few copies of DNA to 109 copies in as little as 30 minutes.
Reverse transcription coupled LAMP can also be applied for amplification of RNA sequences. LAMP employs six specially designed primers that recognise eight distinct regions in the target DNA and the design of these six primers is critical for a successful assay.
LAMP Designer retrieves batches of gene sequences directly into the program from on-line sources such as GenBank. The application can perform a BLAST search to avoid cross homologies while designing the primers. It also supports Local and Desktop BLAST options for using custom and unpublished databases. LAMP Designer incorporates a sequence view with primers marked on the sequence, and it calculates a melting temperature, using nearest neighbour thermodynamic theory and highly accurate SantaLucia values. The software also exports a publication quality report for the designed assays for sharing with colleagues. Data is organised in project format and a local database of sequence information and search results is maintained.
OptiGene Diagnostic Test for COVID-19 with result within 20 minutes
A simple diagnostic test for the coronavirus COVID-19 that takes less time to complete than any equivalent method currently in use. This specific and extremely sensitive test can operate directly from nasal and throat swabs to produce results in less than 20 minutes. Unlike the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test that has already been deployed for diagnosing the virus, the OptiGene procedure uses isothermal LAMP technology that does not require expensive and time-consuming RNA extraction and is inherently much faster than PCR.
The new test is proving to be as sensitive as the PCR ‘gold-standard’ and is being run on the Genie® series of instruments, developed and manufactured by OptiSense Limited in Horsham, West Sussex. This range of diagnostic devices is sold under the OptiGene brand and includes
both portable battery-powered devices as well as the larger high-throughput model, Genie® HT.
OptiGene can also offer to develop variants of its products on behalf of OEM customers and these can adopt the customer’s corporate branding and include special features.
OptiGene has distributors worldwide, one of which is Pro-Lab Diagnostics, the exclusive Canadian distributor for OptiGene of the United Kingdom. For technical documents and/or a complete listing of products manufactured by OptiGene please visit www.optigene.co.uk.
OptiGene Limited declares that all electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) sold by the company are in compliance with Directive 2011/65/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2011 on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment (also known as “RoHS2”).
OptiGene Limited also declares that no products sold by the company are known to contain any of the substances of very high concern (SVHC) as intentionally added components with regards to the European Regulation No. 1907/2006 (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation & restriction of Chemicals).
Optigene Product Distribution in Scandinavia
For details on how to order the all Optigene product within Denmark, Sweden and Norway please contact us at info@youdobio.com. Our team of technical specialists can provide application and product support by phone and email.
