Welcome

Dear Scientist,

I imagine that many of us are waking up each morning, hoping that the news is not as bad in the recent days and weeks…whether it is the pandemic, war or other catastrophes caused by the climate change. We hope with this issue of Profiles in DNA, to give you a few moments to concentrate on something positive, useful, and perhaps a bit entertaining--something for today, but also for future endeavors in your lab.

In this issue, we are excited to highlight the Spectrum Family! After a long journey, the Spectrum CE System will be available for sale early this summer—joining its small but mighty counterpart, Spectrum Compact. We’re glad that we took the time to get it right—the Spectrum CE instrument was entirely designed by our team of engineers at Promega. It will be manufactured in our state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities in Madison, WI, USA.

Additionally, you can read a fascinating article from Lisa Dierig, from the Legal Medicine in Ulm, Germany on the Potential of the PowerSeq® 46GY System to Investigate Low Template Samples. We are grateful to Alacoque Browne from the Forensic Science Ireland for writing about her lab’s Validation of Promega’s Casework Extraction, DNA IQ™ and PowerQuant® Systems on the Hamilton Microlab STAR Liquid Handling System.

For some insight into one of the leaders in our R&D team, please read the profile on Bob McLaren. Bob and his team have developed some of our best-selling STR kits and have worked a tremendous number of R&D hours on both Spectrum CE instruments.

And as always, we have the latest information on upcoming meetings. We look forward to finally meeting many of you in person again!

In case you have an idea for a future article, then please send me an email with your suggestion (nicole.siffling@promega.com). Thank you!