About Us:

Our Team 

The concept of developing a robust and high-quality thermostable polymerase system for DNA primer extension was introduced in a 1987 report by G. F. Hong (1), a pioneer in nucleic acid research (2). Our team, composed of a group of cell biologists, pathologists and virologists, succeeded in transforming this concept into practice in 1996. Now we are introducing this enzymatic repeated cycle primer extension technology to the world upon expiration of the PCR process patents formerly owned by Hoffmann-La Roche. (The PCR process patents expired on March 28, 2006 in Europe, and on March 29, 2005 in the U.S.)

The leader of our team is Sin Hang Lee, M.D., whose past and recent professional affiliations are summarized in various editions of Marquis Who's Who in the World, Who's Who in Frontiers of Science and Technology, and Who's Who in America.

Our LoTemp™HiFi® DNA Technology - A revolutionary approach to PCR           

The moderately thermostable bacterial DNA polymerases which exhibit their maximum DNA polymerization activity at about 65ºC cannot survive heating at 95ºC (1), the temperature traditionally used to denature double-stranded DNA templates during thermocycling for repeated primer extension. However, these enzymes may be quite stable in dilute working solutions at room temperature, capable of retaining their DNA sequencing polymerase quality for several weeks without artificial cooling (3).  Some of them may even have proof-reading function and exhibit higher processivity than the commonly used heat-resistant DNA polymerases in enzymatic polymerization of nucleotides (4). As demonstrated more recently, the degree of heat tolerance of these moderately thermostable enzymes may be increased further by changing their amino acid sequence through specific site-directed mutation and DNA recombination (5).  HiFi® DNA Tech, LLC is dedicated to transferring this new knowledge accumulated in the past 15 years into action to simplify the basic techniques used in applied molecular biology.

Its LoTemp™ HiFi®  polymerase ready-to-use reaction mix composed of selected DNA polymerases, stabilizers and melting reagents optimized for dsDNA denaturing at 85ºC has so many  advantages over the traditional heat-resistant DNA polymerase kits that  it really makes the PCR procedure unbelievably simple. In fact, you do not even need a refrigerator to run PCR laboratories.

 

 References:  

  1. 1. Ye S, Hong G. Heat-Stable DNA Polymerase I Large Fragment Resolves Hairpin Structure in DNA Sequencing. Scientia Sinica (Series B) 1987; 30: 503-506.
  2. 2. Sanger F, Coulson A R, Hong GF, Hill DF, Petersen GB. Nucleotide sequence of bacteriophage λ DNA.   J Molecular Biol 1982; 162: 729-773.
  3. 3. Earley JJ, Kuivaniemi H, Prockop DJ, Tromp G. Robotic Automation of Dideoxyribonucleotide Sequencing Reactions. BioTechniques 1994; 17:156-165.
  4. 4. US patents  #5,747,298; #5,834,253
  5. 5. US patent #6,165,765