Amplicon Express Online Store FAQ
Find answers to commonly asked questions regarding Amplicon Express' online BAC, cDNA, and siRNA
library shopping system.
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General Information
- How was the idea for an online store for BAC and cDNA libraries conceived?
The idea to offer our pre-made libraries through an online system is a result of years
of careful construction of these libraries, and the desire to promote research and
scientific development throughout the academic, government, and commercial communities.
Since Amplicon Express houses the largest collection of non-exclusive and exclusive BAC libraries in
the world, our goal is offer research communities the chance to purchase these
libraries at substantially discounted prices in an effort to help them accelerate
their discovery process and research programs.
- Amplicon Express states they've made over 450 BAC libraries, but I see
less than 100 available in your store. Why is that?
After the construction of a custom BAC library, Amplicon Express provides
exclusive use of that BAC library to the client for one year. Once the
12-month term has expired, the client then has the option to purchase
a yearly exclusive contract, or a lifetime exclusive contract for
rights to the custom library.
If the client opts for an exclusive license, that library cannot be
made available to the public and will not be listed in our store. Only
the client ordering the original custom library may purchase these
exclusivity agreements.
- If I order a pre-made library, filter set, or pool and superpool set,
how long will it be until I receive my order?
Amplicon Express provides their custom molecular biology services on a
'first-come, first-served' basis. Although the time required to make
a copy of our pre-made libraries, nylon filters, or pools & superpools
products is significantly less than a custom product, it is a good idea
to place your order as soon as you are ready to insure a quick turn-around time.
The time for fulfilling an order could be as little as 2 weeks, or longer depending
upon when your order arrives in our production queue. We will do our best
to give you an accurate estimate of the turnaround time for your project
after your order has been confirmed.
- Can you tell me why there is a difference in price for academic and
commercial pre-made libraries, but not for nylon filters/pools and superpools?
Nylon Filters and Pool & Superpool sets are screening tools used to find a clone
of interest within one of our pre-made or custom BAC libraries. Using these
screening tools may provide an answer as to where a particular gene or
sequence is located, but will ultimately not provide the researcher with the
resource needed to study the sequence of interest.
Amplicon Express BAC and cDNA libraries are the resources which will allow a client
to study his or her region of interest. To insure that commercial researchers have
unrestricted access to our libraries and are insured that Amplicon Express does not
ask for reach-through-rights or royalties on any discoveries made from one of our
libraries (unless the client and Amplicon Express have a written contractual
agreement), our commercially discounted library prices are slightly higher than
the academic prices.
Academic researchers enjoy the same rights with our libraries as do commercial users.
- If Nylon Filters and Pools & Superpools are both used as screening tools
for my pre-made libraries, why are Pools & Superpools so much more expensive
than Nylon Filter sets?
Nylon Filters are typically used for a small number of library screenings, and cannot
be used much more than 5 times to obtain reliable results. The construction of a nylon
filter is also fairly straightforward and not as technically difficult as constructing
a high quality Pool and Superpool set.
Pools and Superpools are used when there is a need to screen libraries a large number of
times, and can be used up to 3000 times to screen your library. The time and technical
expertise needed to construct this screening tool far exceeds that of a nylon filter.
Purchase of a Pool & Superpool set from Amplicon Express also gives you unlimited
access to our custom online software for determining the results of your screening
experiments.
- Are there any other charges associated with your pre-made BAC and cDNA libraries?
When you place an order for your pre-made library, nylon filter set,
or pool and superpool set, shipping charges have not been added when you checkout.
The reason that we do not add shipping charges to the purchase price through our store
is that since all of our products are custom orders, it is difficult to accurately
calculate shipping until the order has been completed and has been packaged for shipping
Please note that the purchaser is responsible for all shipping and handling charges,
including any taxes, duties, or other tariffs imposed for shipping libraries within the
US and internationally.
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Making A Purchase
- Is my payment and personal information secure when I enter it at your online store?
What technologies do you use to guarantee safe transfer of my information?
Amplicon Express considers your online security to be of the utmost importance, which is
why we use industry-leading technology to encrypt your sensitive data when you make a purchase
through our online store.
The technology we use to encrypt web page data is 1024-bit RSA encryption, the highest level
available for general commerical use. This level of encryption has never been
successfully cracked, and in order to even attempt a 'brute-force' (trying
every combination possible) crack, it would take many millions of years to do so
with current algorithms made for this purpose.
Amplicon Express takes your security a step further, and also encrypts sensitive data
that will be sent to us via email from our web-server. We use the GPG (Gnu Pretty
Good Privacy) program to encrypt your emails, and GPG uses the same 1024-bit RSA
encryption that is used for web data encryption.
If you would like to learn any more about these technologies, you can visit the
GPG web-site or read more information on
RSA Encryption.
- Do you accept credit cards as payment for purchases? Why can't I enter
my credit information online?
Amplicon Express accepts Visa and Mastercard when you'd like to use a credit
card to make your purchases. However, due to the nature of the items being
purchased, we prefer to give our clients a chance to discuss with our scientists
and business team any questions they may have before being committed to the purchase
of these items.
If you would like to make a purchase by credit card, please contact
Heather Marney to provide your credit card information.
- I do not want to enter payment information online, but I'd still like to make
an order. Can I do this?
If you do not want to enter your PO Number or check information online, please leave that
section of the order form blank. In order to process your order however, we will
need you to contact Heather Marney to set-up
payment arrangements within 1-2 business days of placing your order.
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Choosing the Right Product
- What items will I receive with my pre-made library? How do store these items?
No answer has yet been entered for this question.
- What items will I receive with my nylon filters set(s)? How do I store these items?
No answer has yet been entered for this question.
- What items will I receive with my pools and superpool set(s)? How do I store these items?
No answer has yet been entered for this question.
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Technical Information
- What are nylon filters?
Nylon filters are a specialized membrane used to that allow crosslinking of DNA
to the filter in a manner
such that the bound DNA may be probed for regions of interest ('hits') by radioactive, chemiluminescence, or
other hybridization techniques.
Amplicon Express uses state-of-the-art robotics to print our nylon filters,and
we have the ability to provide single- or double-density filters. Note most
nylon filters can be used to screen your library up to a maximum of five times before
results become difficult to interpret.
- How many times can I use my nylon filters to screen my libraries?
Nylon filters can be used to screen your libraries up to 5 times, when used
in accordance with our instructions.
- What are pools and superpools?
Taken from the Overview section of Amplicon Express Pool & Superpool
manual:
This pooling and superpooling system enables researchers to use PCR for screening
a BAC library and identify the specific plate & well containing a BAC clone with a
sequence of interest. The screening is done in two separate rounds of PCR on pooled
BAC clones (‘Round I’and ‘Round II’).
Each kit is custom built for the researcher and
the total number of Superpools in the kit will depend on the total number of BAC clones
in the library. Each Superpool will have a corresponding 96-well plate containing all
corresponding Plate Pools, Row Pools, Column Pools and Diagonal Pools (called a PRCD plate).
For detailed descriptions of these superpools and pools, see pages 11 and 12. The
entire resource is aliquoted onto TWO identical working stock, 96-well plate sets
(to help reduce the risk of contaminating the entire resource).
The Round I PCR is
performed on all the superpools (containing all BAC clones in the library). Each
Superpool contains 4,608 individual BAC clones. The results from Round I PCR will
identify which Superpool(s) contains BAC clone(s) with the sequence of interest
(there may be more than one Superpool identified). The researcher may pursue one
or more positive hits found in Round I PCR.
The Round II PCR is performed on the
Plate, Row, Column and Diagonal (PRCD) pools for the specific Superpool being investigated.
The Round II requires 76 PCR experiments plus controls. The results from Round II
of PCR should allow the researcher to identify the exact plate and well position
for one or several positive hits in the particular Superpool under investigation.
This allows the researcher to have identified the specific BAC clone or clones of
interest, out of the complete BAC library, that have the sequence where the PCR
primers were targeted at.
- How many times can I use my pool and superpool sets to screen my libraries?
Pools and Superpools sets can be used up to 3000 times to screen your libraries,
and represent one of the most powerful and accurate ways for you to find your
region of interest within that library.
- Can I order a single clone from my library if I find a positive hit on one of
my nylon filters or pool and superpool sets?
No. The difficulty and chance for error when extracting a single clone from a
library makes it impractical for Amplicon Express to provide this service. As
well, having to repeatedly pull single clones from a library plate would lead
to repeated freeze-thaw cycles, which would eventually lower the overall
quality of the stored library.
- What is the proprietary software I've heard about that Amplicon Express
has for analyzing my pool and superpool results? Can I use this software
to analyze my results?
Amplicon Express and Luke Dupin have developed proprietary online software for analysis of the PCR
experiments you run in conjunction with your Pool and Superpools sets. This software
allows for fast, accurate, and automated analysis of your experimental results and
helps to take human error out of the equation when evaluating (sometimes) complex
results.
Clients who purchase Pool and Superpools sets will be granted access to this software
for the lifetime of the Pool and Superpool set. If you are a client who has purchased
one of these sets and would like to use this software, please contact
Keith Stormo for information on how to access
and use this software.
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Request Technical Support
- How do I analyze my pool and superpool results? Do I have to do it manually
each time I screen my library?
In order to analyze results from your Pool and Superpool experiments, you can
download the
Pools and Superpools Manual, or if you would like to take a more automated approach,
please contact Keith Stormo about how you
can use our proprietary online software to analyze your results.
- Where can I find out more about pre-made libraries, nylon filters, pools
and superpools, or other products that Amplicon Express offers?
The best way to find out more about the products and services Amplicon Express
can offer is to visit our homepage which is
a great launch point for discovering more about our custom DNA libraries, high and low-throughput
DNA sequencing, and other biological services.
- Do you offer technical support for products you sell in your online store?
How much does it cost, and how do I get in touch with a technical support
specialist?
Amplicon Express provides free technical support for all of it's products. When
you contact us with a question, you will not be directed to a 'customer service
specialist', nor will you spend endless amounts of time on the phone trying
to get through to a real person. When you have a technical question, you
will speak with a scientist trained to answer your questions, and when you
have a billing question, you will speak with our controller. Other general
inquiries about our products that are made by phone will be forwarded to
the person in our company most capable of answering your question satisfactorily.
For a list of contacts by phone, email, and snail mail, please visit our
Contact page.
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Contact Us
- I have a question not covered by this F.A.Q. Please let me know
who to contact to ask my question.
For all science, business, administrative, or other questions regarding our
company, we would again direct you to our Contact page.
- I'd like to send you a comment, compliment, or criticism regarding
your online store or other portions of your web-site. Who do I contact
in order to do this?
Please email Robert Bogden with any comments, compliments,
or suggestions you have for our web-site, as he is in charge of developing and maintaining the
layout and scripting involved in the site.
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