BioHelix announced today that it has entered into a licensing agreement with Harvard University for exclusive, worldwide rights to commercialize a novel Whole Genome Amplification (WGA) technology developed at Harvard Medical School. WGA techniques are typically used to amplify genomic DNA for archiving and downstream analysis including genotyping, forensics, comparative genomic hybridization, and single cell analysis. The Harvard invention mimics the DNA replication process found in nature in that it uses an enzyme called primase to synthesize primers on-site, generating multiple initiation sites for random, whole genome amplification. There are several competitive advantages to Harvard's rapid, primase-based WGA (pWGA) technology. In particular, Harvard's pWGA is significantly faster than all other commercially available WGA techniques. The reaction time for pWGA is less than one hour. This makes it a much more attractive technology for use in diagnostic applications than other conventional methods.

"Nucleic acid testing in molecular diagnostics is a rapidly growing field," said Dr. Huimin Kong, President and CEO of BioHelix. "BioHelix is developing a rich portfolio of technology platforms for nucleic acid analysis and molecular diagnostics and Harvard's pWGA technology fits very well into our product development pipeline. BioHelix aims to develop and commercialize novel pWGA-based products for life science research, DNA detection, and clinical diagnostics. "