Released on = September 29, 2006, 9:51 pm

Press Release Author = Neil Watson

Industry = -- Choose an Industry --

Press Release Summary = PREMIER Biosoft International today announced the world wide
release of version 4 of AlleleID, the only tool that helps design microarrays and
real time PCR diagnostic assays for pathogen detection or bacterial identification.
The new version includes support for designing splice variant microarrays to detect
gene splicing and alternative splicing events.


Press Release Body = Palo Alto, California--September 22, 2006, PREMIER Biosoft
International today announced the world wide release of version 4 of AlleleID, the
only tool available for designing diagnostic assays for both real time PCR and
microarrays. AlleleID now includes support for designing probes for splice variant
arrays. To detect the alternative splicing events, AlleleID designs two types of
probes called junction probes and intra-exon probes. Junction probes span exon-exon
boundaries while intra-exon probes lie entirely within a single exon, making
AlleleID an effective tool in designing experiments to test novel splice forms.

In addition to designing single template and multiplex experiments version 4
includes support for designing species identification and taxa discrimination assays
for popular real time PCR chemistries such as SYBR® Green, TaqMan® and TaqMan® MGB
(Minor Groove Binding).

\"AlleleID can be effectively used in developing assays for biodefense, environmental
monitoring, prevention/control of infectious diseases, development of surveillance
tests and biodiversity studies.\" says Kay Brown, V.P. Business Development and
Marketing. \"We are pleased with how well AlleleID has been received by researcher
all over the world. We are proud to have organizations such as FDA, CDC, and USDA as
our customers.\"

To design species identification assays, AlleleID aligns sequences using ClustalW
and analyzes conserved and species specific regions to design molecular probes for
microarrays and TaqMan®/molecular beacon real time PCR assays. The assays are
designed to detect only the strain or species of interest from the mix. For cross
species assays, AlleleID identifies conserved regions of related organisms that can
be used with samples from any of the organisms. This powerful functionality can also
be used for detection, identification, quantification of contaminants.

\"Minimal Set\", one of the most innovative features in AlleleID, helps design the
fewest number of primers and probes that uniquely identify each of the desired
species/strain/taxa from the mix, lowering assay costs. For taxa or cross species
assays, this feature is especially useful when the group or taxa is highly
dissimilar. For a partial set of pre-designed or published set of primers, AlleleID
can design compatible primers and probes for the rest of sequences for species or
taxa specific assays.

AlleleID employs a sophisticated algorithm to assure assay success. Highly specific
oligos are designed by avoiding regions of significant homology found by
automatically interpreting BLAST search results. The oligos designed can be BLAST
searched, to verify their specificity. Primer efficiency is enhanced by
automatically avoiding template secondary structures.

For details, please visit: http://www.premierbiosoft.com/

About PREMIER Biosoft International:

Founded in 1994, the company is a group of computer scientists and molecular
biologists dedicated to producing cutting edge intuitive software for the molecular
biologist. The goal of the company is to study the most recent innovations in
molecular biology and translate them into software products that aid biologists.
Additional information about PREMIER Biosoft International is available at
http://www.PremierBiosoft.com

Contact:
Arun Apte
PREMIER Biosoft International
650-856-2703
http://www.PremierBiosoft.com



Web Site = http://www.premierbiosoft.com

Contact Details = PREMIER Biosoft International
3786 Corina Way
Palo Alto, CA 94303-4504
Phone: 650-856-2703
Fax: 650-618-1773
Email: support@premierbiosoft.com