Promega develops technology to reduce crime sample backlogs

Madison, Wis. - Promega Corp. has announced new and automated capabilities of a DNA extraction system that will allow analysts to reduce the time it takes to examine samples taken from crime scenes, especially in sexual-assault cases.

The company's patent-pending Differex extraction system should enable crime labs to reduce the time it takes to process a backlog of samples from three to five days to a few hours.

According to the Madison-based Promega, the updated method makes it possible to process up to 40 extraction samples in less than five hours, reducing total processing time by more than 70 percent.

The majority of backlogged samples are sexual assault samples, which are challenging to process because the combined male and female DNA must be separated, prior to analysis, with a time-consuming manual method of extraction.

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