NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – The French National Blood Service has selected Jeta Molecular's qPCR-based QTrace Analysis System for chimerism monitoring, with BioNoBis supplying system reagents and software to the service under a four-year contract, the companies recently announced.
The Établissement Français du Sang (EFS) supplies cell and tissue therapy products to French healthcare organizations for solid organ and hematopoietic stem cell transplants. Following stem cell transplantation, patients are monitored to assess transplant engraftment and possible disease recurrence, and chimerism testing is routinely performed on those who lack molecular markers specific for their disease.
Using a panel of 42 markers, QTrace can detect .1 percent chimerism based on 150 nanograms of input DNA, and its software automatically identifies informative markers and quantifies chimerism levels, Stéphanie Ducreux, an EFS biologist, said in a statement. "Jeta Molecular showed a true willingness to help us improve this software for compliance with our needs and that made a real difference," she said.
"The French were the first to describe the application of indel variant-based qPCR for chimerism analysis many years ago, so we are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with them," Doug Bost, CEO of Utrecht, Netherlands-based Jeta added in the statement.