Biosearch Friends & Family Event

Last Chance for Savings!

Make sure to take advantage of Biosearch’s Friends & Family Promotion before it ends on January 31. Don’t forget to forward this email to your friends so they can also take advantage of this special offer* (please see promo details and restrictions below).

New customers, this is your way to receive 25% off your first dual-labeled probe purchase.

Existing customers save too! Get a 10% discount off your next dual-labeled probe purchase.

To take advantage of this promotion, just enter promotion code BFF upon ordering. Visit our website to view our complete selection of dual-labeled probes and place your order online.

Scorpion® Primers & Molecular Beacons

When a Linear Probe isn’t enough…

There’s more to real-time qPCR than simply TaqMan® assays. Molecular Beacons and Scorpion primers are also excellent choices for real-time qPCR. Not too familiar with them? Here’s a quick breakdown:

Molecular Beacons
Molecular Beacons are dual-labeled FRET probes that offer excellent signal to noise ratios because they incorporate a Black Hole Quencher® dye and a fluorophore reporter molecule. Complementary sequences at the 3’ and 5’ ends of the beacon hybridize together creating a stem-loop structure, which promotes highly efficient quenching and much improved binding specificity. Unlike TaqMan® probes, Molecular Beacons do not require enzymatic cleavage of the probe during thermal cycling to release their fluorescent signal.

Scorpion Primers
Scorpion primers are based on a uni-molecular probing mechanism that similarly does not require probe hydrolysis. A single oligonucleotide combines both a primer on the 3' end and a stem-loop probe on the 5' end. Other advantages include fast amplicon detection and excellent signal to noise ratios. Both Molecular Beacons and Scorpion primers are used in applications such as gene expression, SNP detection, in-vitro diagnostics, and species discrimination.

For more information regarding Molecular Beacons, Scorpion primers, and our other probe formats, view our Probe Formats Animation Video.

Biosearch is committed to providing personalized service to our customers. We have gotten to know you through your ordering process. Take this opportunity to get to know the people inside Biosearch.

Daren Dick

Director of Oligonucleotide Operations

Born and raised in Marin County, CA, Daren first joined Biosearch Technologies as an intern in 1996, and returned as a full time employee in 1997 after graduating from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a degree in biochemistry.

Daren has dedicated his career to developing the most efficient methods of manufacturing high quality fluorescence-quenched probes. His initial efforts focused on improving tools for solid phase conjugation of dyes to linear dual-labeled probes and Molecular Beacons to replace the laborious solution phase chemistries commonly practiced at the time. With these tools in hand, Biosearch accepted its first probe order in late 1997, and Biosearch’s Oligo Manufacturing Department was born.

For the next several years, Daren maintained a dual role as a research scientist and oligonucleotide manufacturing chemist. He was a co-inventor of the Black Hole Quencher dyes, which have fully penetrated the real-time PCR market and have enabled the application of multiplex real time PCR. Today, he focuses his efforts on overseeing Biosearch’s oligo manufacturing operations, which include a robust RUO (Research Use Only) oligo manufacturing group and a rapidly growing GMP oligo manufacturing group, both of which produce the highest quality oligos available in the market.