Applied Biosystems Receives Industrial Design Award for StepOne(TM) Real-Time PCR System.

StepOnePlus[TM] System Now Available

FOSTER CITY, Calif. -- Applied Biosystems (NYSE:ABI), an Applera Corporation business, today announced that its recently introduced StepOne[TM] Real-Time PCR System has received an award for industrial design from the editors of Instrument Business Outlook (IBO), an industry newsletter covering the analytical and life-science instruments markets.

Strategic Directions International, Inc., publisher of IBO, conducts an annual industrial design competition to highlight innovative and distinctive products released during the past year. The IBO Design Awards recognize products that are both aesthetically appealing and that enhance the end-user's experience. The StepOne system received a Bronze award in the category for Analytical Instrument Industrial Design.

Applied Biosystems also today announced it has introduced a new system in the StepOne family of products, the StepOnePlus[TM] Real-time PCR System. Enhancements made to the StepOnePlus System include a 96-well block, which doubles the number of wells compared to the entry-level StepOne System, and the ability to use Tamra[TM] dyes in addition to the FAM, SYBR green, and VIC dye chemistries available with the basic StepOne System. An upgrade option to StepOnePlus will be available to current StepOne customers later this year.

Applied Biosystems designed the StepOne and StepOnePlus systems with user-friendly, yet highly functional interfaces for both new and experienced real-time PCR researchers. These systems offer a space-saving footprint and relatively lower cost than previously available real-time PCR systems.

The StepOne and StepOnePlus Systems were developed in response to the growing market of researchers interested in the increasing number of applications of real-time PCR, a common laboratory method used to simultaneously detect and determine the amount of nucleic acids present in biological samples. The systems can perform both standard and fast thermal cycling for any real-time PCR application, such as gene expression analysis, SNP genotyping, gene detection, and viral load analysis.

"The StepOne Real-Time PCR System's industrial design not only makes the product appealing to end-users, but increases its functionality," said Tanya Samazan, managing editor of IBO. "The System's compact footprint and sleek design communicate ease of use and accessibility."

Among the features of the StepOne and StepOnePlus Systems that make these instruments easier to use is intuitive software that simplifies their operation. Beginning users benefit from wizards that can be tailored to run specific experiments and guide new users through set up, operation, and analysis. More experienced users can customize experiment design parameters such as thermal cycling protocols and nucleic acid template types.

"The overall design of the StepOne and StepOnePlus Systems was a strategic focus in the development of these products," said John Gerace, vice-president and general manager for Applied Biosystems' sequence detection systems business unit. "Understanding that this may be a customer's first introduction to real-time PCR, we wanted to make the technology as accessible and approachable as possible."

The StepOne instruments can be connected to a local area network, making it possible for researchers to participate in distributed research collaborations, such as those commonly conducted in academic and public research environments. This promotes the sharing of data across laboratories, making information more accessible to larger groups of scientists. These same networking capabilities empower researchers to download data from remote locations, streamlining the task of monitoring the progress of experiments.

In addition to offering higher throughput, the StepOnePlus System includes VeriFlex[TM] Blocks technology, which brings six independently controllable peltier blocks together for precise temperature control and enhanced PCR functionality. VeriFlex Blocks deliver flexibility for those who have probes and primers that are optimized at different annealing temperatures.

The StepOne and StepOnePlus Systems are part of the family of real-time PCR systems offered by Applied Biosystems for laboratories of all sizes. For production-scale sample throughput, Applied Biosystems offers the 7900HT Fast Real-Time PCR System. For mid-to-high sample throughput researchers can choose from the 7300 Real-Time PCR System, 7500 Real-Time PCR System, or 7500 Fast Real-Time PCR System. To support these platforms, Applied Biosystems has pre-designed more than 700,000 TaqMan[R] Gene Expression Assays and more than 4.5 million TaqMan[R] SNP Genotyping Assays. Complementing these off-the-shelf products are custom TaqMan[R] Assays, which are available for customer-specific gene expression or genotyping assays. For more information on the StepOne and StepOnePlus Real-time PCR Systems please visit www.appliedbiosystems.com.

About Applera Corporation and Applied Biosystems

Applera Corporation consists of two operating groups. The Applied Biosystems Group serves the life-science industry and research community by developing and marketing instrument-based systems, consumables, software, and services. Customers use these tools to analyze nucleic acids (DNA and RNA), small molecules, and proteins to make scientific discoveries and develop new pharmaceuticals. Applied Biosystems' products also serve the needs of some markets outside of life science research, which we refer to as "applied markets," such as the fields of: human identity testing (forensic and paternity testing); biosecurity, which refers to products needed in response to the threat of biological terrorism and other malicious, accidental, and natural biological dangers; and quality and safety testing, for example in food and the environment. Applied Biosystems is headquartered in Foster City, CA, and reported sales of approximately $2.1 billion during fiscal 2007. The Celera Group is primarily a molecular diagnostics business that is using proprietary genomics and proteomics discovery platforms to identify and validate novel diagnostic markers, and is developing diagnostic products based on these markers as well as other known markers. Celera maintains a strategic alliance with Abbott for the development and commercialization of molecular, or nucleic acid-based, diagnostic products, and it is also developing new diagnostic products outside of this alliance. Through its genomics and proteomics research efforts, Celera is also discovering and validating therapeutic targets, and it is seeking strategic partnerships to develop therapeutic products based on these discovered targets. Information about Applera Corporation, including reports and other information filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission, is available at http://www.applera.com, or by telephoning 800.762.6923. Information about Applied Biosystems is available at http://www.appliedbiosystems.com.

Applied Biosystems Forward Looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release are forward-looking. These may be identified by the use of forward-looking words or phrases such as "should," "expect," and "planned," among others. These forward-looking statements are based on Applera Corporation's current expectations. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a "safe harbor" for such forward-looking statements. In order to comply with the terms of the safe harbor, Applera Corporation notes that a variety of factors could cause actual results and experience to differ materially from the anticipated results or other expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements. These factors include but are not limited to: (1) rapidly changing technology and dependence on the development and customer acceptance of new products; (2) sales dependent on customers' capital spending policies and government-sponsored research; and (3) other factors that might be described from time to time in Applera Corporation's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All information in this press release is as of the date of the release, and Applera does not undertake any duty to update this information, including any forward-looking statements, unless required by law.

(c)Copyright 2007. Applera Corporation. All Rights Reserved. AB (Design), Applied Biosystems, Applera, Celera and VIC are registered trademarks, and StepOne, StepOnePlus, FAM, TAMRA and VeriFlex are trademarks of Applera Corporation or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and/or certain other countries.

TaqMan is a registered trademark of Roche Molecular Systems, Inc.