Summary: It’s now more cost effective than ever to test cures before bringing them to market.
If you wanted to synthesize DNA in order to study how it reacts with a certain chemical, using a modified oligo for synthesis is your best course of action. As the name suggests, these factory produced strands are designed to assist in replicating certain conditions necessary for research. An oligo array uses synthetic materials of single stranded DNA, and the idea is to create something that will replicate like DNA. This creates a kind of sandbox, where medical engineers can test how something might react if injected into a patient.
How Oligos Work
Oligos function not unlike a printer, where the base pairs of synthesized DNA are replicated in layers. Most visual representations use colors, or the letters A, C, T and G to denote the various strands. As these layers are built, the DNA molecule begins to form. Oligos have found their place in research because they are extremely cost effective. A pool containing thousands costs just a few cents, which substantially lowers the costs associated with experimentation. That means more money for development costs, personnel and administration.
There are also multiple uses for oligos, aside from DNA synthesis. Oligos are used in various reactions to test how a chemical will affect DNA. This is key in curing genetic diseases or cancer, but it also allows us to study a cure before deploying it in a live testing environment. Although the results are preliminary, they help paint a picture of what is likely to happen when the cure is administered.
Bio: For more than 35 years, The Midland Certified Reagent Company has been pioneering the production of modified oligos for use in DNA and RNA synthesis.