PORTSMOUTH, N.H.—Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. and Gentel Biosciences announced the two companies have completed the first stage of a collaboration to shift microarrays to a new 96-well configuration. This new patent-pending product will evolve the current microarray offerings toward an "ELISA-like" format to increase the speed and volume of multiplex applications. The new platform conforms to the SBS microplate standard and is amenable to the automated processing of thousands of samples per day.

Thermo Fisher Scientific offers the platform under the Thermo Scientific SmartPlex brand name with a range of microarray chemistry configurations including aminosilane and epoxysilane. Gentel Biosciences offers the platform engineered with a proprietary ultra-thin nitrocellulose surface chemistry under the APiX96 brand name. Gentel has also initiated development of content-based research kits including quantitative multiplex immunoassays, antibody and antigen arrays in the 96-well format.