Biologists Get an In-Depth Look at Cell Death with Guava Technologies' Powerful New Tests.

Business Editors/Health/Medical Writers

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HAYWARD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 21, 2003

A New Suite of Assays for Highly Quantitative Apoptosis Analysis

Guava Technologies, a biotechnology company, announces a new suite of single cell tests (assays) for biologists to easily gain a complete and highly quantitative profile of the stages of programmed cell death or apoptosis. These tests/assays are designed to run on Guava's unique, patented cell analysis systems. Guava Technologies provides life science researchers easy-to-use, affordable single cell analysis systems they can use at their benchtops -- the Guava PCA and PCA-96 systems.

"Historically, apoptosis assays have suffered from being only loosely quantitative, as well as being subject to multiple wash steps where dying cells can be lost," said Maureen Murphy, associate member in the Department of Pharmacology, Fox Chase Cancer Center. "The beauty of the Guava (system) is that, following minimal manipulation of cells, it generates reliable and reproducible quantitation of apoptotic cells. An added bonus has been the user-friendly aspects of the Guava PCA (system)."

The three assays that comprise the new Guava Apoptosis Suite enable researchers to examine three separate biological aspects of cell death to assess whether each cell is in the early- mid- or late-stages of apoptosis. The suite includes assays for membrane changes (annexin V), activation of caspase enzymes, and DNA fragmentation (TUNEL). Along with Guava's best-selling cell counting assay, ViaCount, this powerful combination of assays enables researchers to use different cellular markers to detect and examine cells at various stages of progression through apoptosis, or "cell death." Furthermore, Guava's assays require only minimal numbers of cells, and include optimized reagent kits, and easy-to-use software, in addition to the instrument used to analyze the cell samples. Guava's turnkey approach to delivering sophisticated cell-based assays results in minimal training requirements, and significant acceleration of the assay and its result.

"Different cell types die at different rates with slightly varied death programs or apoptotic response. A suite of assays is critical for fully characterizing the mechanisms of biological responses," said Glenn Terashita, Guava product marketing manager. "By designing a comprehensive suite of apoptosis assays specifically for use with the Guava PCA systems, we bring the power of apoptosis studies to the laboratory benchtop."

Apoptosis, also known as programmed cell death, is an important mechanism built into the cell itself to control cell growth and division. The ability to examine and understand apoptosis in whole cells is therefore important to basic research for cancer, neurology and cardiology, as well as drug discovery, toxicology, studies of function in genes and identifying traits in cells for research.

New Technical Note Available

Guava Technologies offers researchers a new Technical Note that demonstrates how the Guava Apoptosis Suite and Guava ViaCount assays can be used to monitor apoptosis in cell cultures more accurately and with higher resolution on the Guava PCA systems. Copies of this article can be accessed from the Guava Technologies website at www.guavatechnologies.com under the Literature Request section.

The Guava PCA

The Guava PCA systems simplify cell analysis in a single, powerful benchtop system that scientists in the lab can use with less than one day of training requiring only a few microliters of sample volume, saving precious and expensive cells, reagents, and compounds. The Guava PCA systems are flexible, highly affordable, and ultra-compact. Unlike traditional cell analysis systems, the Guava PCA systems produce high-content, single cell analysis from a single well or tube right at the benchtop. This gives researchers comprehensive test results -- fast -- thus streamlining the entire R&D and drug discovery process.

About Guava Technologies

Based in Hayward, California, Guava Technologies is a biotechnology company that develops, manufactures and markets patented, integrated cellular analysis systems for the life science researcher's benchtop. The company is revolutionizing the way that cell culture monitoring and cell screening assays are performed, by providing highly miniaturized microliter scale systems that make common assays in cell-based analysis accessible at the benchtop. Guava's products have broad applications to life sciences research, drug discovery and biopharmaceutical production today, but also offer potential for use in clinical testing and blood processing, as well as other areas where single cell analysis is important. More information about the company and its products is available at www.guavatechnologies.com.

Note to Editors: Guava and ViaCount are registered trademarks of Guava Technologies, Inc. PCA, Nexin, and MultiCaspase are trademarks of Guava Technologies, Inc.