We provide a range of contract research products and associated services. Please choose the option you would like more information on from the drop-down menu below. A pdf version of our standard products is available to download. Please note that these are our "standard" products and we are pleased to discuss individual needs. Details of how to send us your samples are available on this site.

How much Template to Send

Details of the amount of template to send can be found on the appropriate product page (please select from the drop down menu above). However, to save you having to look there, for standard plasmids please provide 600ng of plasmid in 30µl PER REACTION. A reaction is classed as one template-primer combination.

How much Primer to Send

Details of the amount of primer to send can be found on the appropriate product page (please select from the drop down menu above). However, to save you having to look there, for standard templates please provide primers at 3.2 micromolar (which is the same as 3.2 picomoles per microlitre). We require one microlitre per reaction being performed, but please provide no less than 10 microlitres even if you only want to use a particular primer for one reaction. This is to avoid small volumes evaporating en route. Remember that we also provide most common primers free of charge (take a look at the link on the left).

Prices

Pricing information for all our products is available on our price list page. We also have a downloadable pdf file of standard products and associated prices.

Primers Provided as Standard

We provide many standard DNA sequencing primers free of charge for customers to use for their sequencing. We know that these work well and we would recommend that customers use these in preference to their own versions of these same primers. More information on our standard primers (including plasmid compatibility) is available.

GC-Rich / Secondary Structure

Our standard sequencing chemistry is designed to work well with templates containing most types of DNA sequence. However, it can have problems when the sample is very G-, GT- or GC-rich or when there are secondary structures (hair-pin loops, etc) present. These areas of sequence are very hard for the polymerase to read through and it tends to "stall" (see our trouble shooting section for more information and examples of this effect).

We have developed modified protocols that have proved to be considerably better at dealing with such sequences relative to our standard chemistry. Should customers require this modification (which does add significantly to our costs) for samples with problem regions, we will have to include a small surcharge to cover this. Currently, this surcharge is £2 per reaction. When sending samples that require the modified protocol, please ensure that you ask for the modified protocol in the additional information box of the order form. Please contact us prior to sending samples if you are not sure if you would need to use the modified protocol.