For twenty years, the transplant lab at Dialysis Clinic, Inc. (DCi) in Nashville, TN has depended on Maxwell instruments for their automated nucleic acid purification. In fact, the lab was the first to purchase the instrument when it debuted in 2005. Today, they’ve scaled up to three of the latest Maxwell® Instruments.

“They’re great little instruments,” says Christina Sholar, Clinical Supervisor at DCi. “I think this is our third generation, and we still have the original in the basement. We love them.”

Christina’s lab runs critical tests to ensure compatibility between donors and recipients for solid organ and stem cell transplants. With precious samples and urgent demands, they need tools they can depend on for high-quality results. Their Maxwell® instruments help them ensure successful downstream analysis to support important clinical decisions.

Precious Samples, Urgent Timelines

Founded in 1971 as a non-profit dialysis clinic, DCi now supports a broad spectrum of kidney health issues, including transplants. The company has also expanded its operations to support organ transplants through federally designated organ procurement organizations. Christina’s lab runs the tests to ensure compatibility between donors and recipients.   

“We cover the state of Tennessee,” Christina says. “We do the typing and antibody analysis for solid organ transplants, and then we follow them post-transplant to see if they’ve developed antibodies to the donor. We also do stem cell workups and follow-ups.”

The lab processes 150-200 samples per week. In addition to managing the high sample throughput, the team also must be available 24/7 for urgent calls when an organ donor passes away.

“We used to average about 50 donors a month, but that’s creeping up,” Christina says.

Christina says her team needs a workflow built for speed and minimal hands-on processing. With downstream assays including NGS and qPCR, they also need to trust they’ll have a high-quality DNA sample to work with. That’s what led them to the Maxwell platform in 2005.

Instrumentation for Easy, Reliable Results  

“Maxwell purifications are an easy thing to start new employees with, because they can get quality DNA very easily,” says MacKenzie Gartner, Lead Technologist in Christina’s lab at DCi. “Techs pick up on it very quickly, and it’s something they can feel confident in doing by themselves.”

Twenty years ago, the lab was using manual methods to purify all their nucleic acids. Unlike MacKenzie, Christina remembers those days and admits they weren’t fun. The protocols were labor-intensive, and much more prone to human error. Now, they don’t even teach manual methods anymore.

“When I came on nine years ago, they were teaching a manual method as backup for the Maxwell instruments, but they never got around teaching it to me because it was needed so rarely,” MacKenzie says. “Now it’s not even in the training materials.”

MacKenzie works hands-on with the Maxwell instruments almost every day. The lab mainly uses the Maxwell® Buffy Coat DNA Kit and Maxwell® Buccal Swab DNA Kit. Buccal swabs require 20 minutes of passive pre-processing, but buffy coats can be added directly to the Maxwell cartridges. From there, the automated protocol is only 45 minutes.

“It’s nice that both of them can be run on the same instrument, which gives us flexibility knowing that all three instruments can be available no matter what we’re doing,” MacKenzie adds.

Christina says the Maxwell instruments provide much cleaner DNA eluates than their past manual methods. This is invaluable for lab efficiency, but it’s even more important with stem cell testing.

“With stem cells, they may only send one tube but want three or four different tests,” she explains. “We don’t have room for error – those samples are precious.”

“We keep the instruments pretty active,” MacKenzie adds. “That room constantly has their little noises going. But they’re so dependable – they don’t take much maintenance, and we can count on having one available even when we get some urgent samples from a donor.”

Long-Term Partnership for Success

“Promega is probably our favorite company to work with, as far as support goes,” Christina says. “We rarely have issues, but when we do, we get great responses very quickly.”

As a leader, Christina values strong relationships with her suppliers. Though the lab’s sales representative has changed a few times over the past two decades, she says each one has been reliable and helpful in keeping the lab operations running smoothly. The lab has also benefited from regularly scheduled preventive maintenance visits from Promega service engineers.

“Overall, I just love how dependable the instruments are,” Christina says. “We’re using them all the time. They’re truly our workhorses.”

All photos credit: DCi

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On March 12, 2025, a 46,000-pound stainless-steel chamber made a five-hour journey through Feynman Center to its final resting place in the brand-new Fill-Lyophilize-Finish suite. This massive piece of equipment will more than double the lyophilization capacity at Promega Madison, safeguarding the continuity of production and opening new frontiers in product formulation.

Lyophilization provides scientists with increased stability, enhanced flexibility and protection against error. Promega has been lyophilizing reagents in-house since the mid-1990s, and demand has steadily grown over time. The recent expansion reflects the company’s commitment to anticipating scientists’ future needs and planning for the long term.

Why is Lyophilization Important?

Lyophilization, also known as freeze-drying, provides a variety of benefits in the lab. For example, lyophilized reagents can typically be stored at higher temperatures, and they offer longer stability.

“Lyophilized product also gives you added flexibility in how you tailor your reagents to your specific need,” says Stuart Forsyth, Sr Process Validation Engineer at Promega. “Whether you’re reconstituting with a buffer, water or even a sample, you’re able to alter the assay’s concentration and formulation in ways that are impossible with liquid formulations.”

Many of the most popular Promega products include lyophilized components, including the CellTiter-Glo® Luminescent Cell Viability Assay and ONE-Glo™ Luciferase Assay System.

Promega also offers lyophilization for customers working with Promega to manufacture custom products. The flexibility helps many labs, especially diagnostics, ensure that the final reagent maximizes efficiency and ease of use for point-of-care applications.

“Especially if you’re lyophilizing the whole assay in one, you’re removing a lot of potential for mistakes by the user that would result in product failure,” says Terri McDonnell, Director of Global Custom & OEM Commercial Development. “Lyophilization capabilities are powerful tools to have in your toolbox as you try to formulate a reagent for minimal risk of misuse or mistakes.”

Expanding Lyophilization at Promega Madison

Promega Operations closely monitors the throughput capacity of all critical processes. For years, the team has projected that manufacturing would outgrow the existing lyophilization capacity sometime in the mid-2020s. The project to build out the empty suite in Feynman Manufacturing Center began in 2021, and it will start producing products for sale in early 2026.

The new lyophilizer nearly doubles the throughput capacity of Promega Madison. It will primarily be used with 10ml vials and 100ml bottles, but the line can also handle 2ml and 3ml vials and large LyoGuard trays for bulk powder production. At this point, the team plans to primarily use the Feynman suite for high-demand catalog products like CellTiter-Glo, creating flexibility to use the older lines for custom products and other smaller demands.

Continuity, Collaboration and Creativity

The new lyophilization suite will have several significant impacts for scientists using Promega reagents.

First, the new lyophilization line creates additional redundancy to ensure that key products are continuously available. The huge increase in capacity means that if one lyophilizer is down for maintenance, the others can handle picking up the slack. The new suite also features the current state-of-the-art automation technology, minimizing any risks for contamination or human error that would disrupt high-quality production.

For customers working with Promega on custom orders, the new lyophilizer gives Promega more flexibility to collaborate with customers on finding the right formulation for their needs, all within the established quality system.

“We partner with a wide range of customers seeking to adapt or customize our technologies for specific applications,” says Terri McDonnell. “As the primary manufacturer of most of our products, and with the addition of new lyophilization capabilities, we can offer expanded scale and format options. Because these activities are performed in-house, we maintain greater control over quality and supply chain logistics, helping to ensure the consistent and reliable delivery of products.”

Finally, the additional capacity means that high-volume products can be manufactured less frequently by scaling up batch sizes. This frees up human resources to explore process improvements and dedicate more time to work outside of the production workflow. Kris Pearson, Director of Manufacturing Sciences and Custom operations, says the smaller equipment can serve as a sandbox where teams can test creative ideas.

“We’ll have more opportunity to work with R&D on new product development, and to dive deep into new cycles and what that can mean for our custom capabilities,” she says. “We can play around with new formats and processes to find new ways of offering a great product for every custom customer.”

Long-Term Planning and Strategy

As a private company, Promega isn’t beholden to short-term gains. Leadership prioritizes decisions that support future needs, while building in room to adapt to changes in the scientific landscape.

“When we started designing Feynman Manufacturing Center, we said we wanted 30% of the square footage to be frontier space,” says Jen Romanin VP of Global Support and IVD Operations, and key member of the Global Planning Team. “This space would give us future flexibility in where new features would be installed.”

Sometimes needs are forecasted far in advance – for example, the architectural drawings of Feynman Manufacturing Center dated February 2012 show the new suite was already earmarked for Lyophilization almost a decade before the construction project began. Other spaces are left intentionally unlabeled as a nod to the unknown needs that will emerge over time. Whatever arises, the flexibility and foresight built into Promega facilities will position the team to respond quickly – and build a high-quality solution – without having to break new ground.

“I think this says two things about us,” says Chuck York, Vice President of Operations at Promega. “First, it says we’re pretty confident we’re going to be here for a long time. Secondly, it says that no matter what happens between now and then, we want to make sure we’re prepared.”

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For some scientists, words like “undrugged protein” are almost a personal challenge. That simple phrase sparks a fire that fuels an intense drive to characterize the protein, solve its structure and develop a molecule that will bind it and produce a beneficial phenotype.

That’s how Dr. Val Watts feels about adenylyl cyclases. These GPCR-activated enzymes are promising targets for efforts related to chronic pain and many other health conditions. While more than 50% of approved drugs in the United States target GPCRs, there are currently no therapeutics targeting the downstream adenylyl cyclases.

“The fact that they are undrugged today…I take this challenge so seriously that I have a tattoo of adenylyl cyclase on my arm,” Val says. “I want to drug them before my time in academia is over.”

Val Watts is the Associate Dean for Research and a Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Purdue University. The Promega Academic Access Program has helped him bring technologies like NanoBRET® protein interaction assays into his lab at reduced costs. Technologies acquired through the program help Val’s team generate unique insights into adenylyl cyclase behavior in live cells, monitor critical molecules and much more. Their participation in the Academic Access Program and their growing relationships with Promega scientists have helped the lab navigate financial constraints while still pushing their research forward.

Continue reading “Tackling Undrugged Proteins with the Promega Academic Access Program”

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a common eye disease that can result in progressive loss of vision. While AMD typically affects older adults, a specific rare type of AMD called Malattia Leventinese/Doyne honeycomb retinal dystrophy (ML/DHRD) can appear as early as the teenage years. Although ML/DHRD is rare, its study may provide insights into broader mechanisms of retinal degeneration, which could benefit millions affected by AMD.  

While the genetic cause of ML/DHRD is known, there have been no small molecule inhibitors identified that reduce the production of the disease-causing protein. However, researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and the University of Minnesota recently published a paper that describes a small-molecule inhibitor that addresses the primary pathology of ML/DHRD. In the paper, titled “GSK3 inhibition reduces ECM production and prevents age-related macular degeneration-like pathology,” the team used CRISPR-engineered cell lines to study production of the disease-causing protein in response to treatment with inhibitors. The work was supported by the Promega Academic Access Program, which helped defray the costs of needed reagents. Their results point to future strategies for developing therapeutics at the currently incurable disease.

Continue reading “Academic Access to Cutting-Edge Tools Fuels Macular Degeneration Discovery”

On September 25, Promega Research Scientist David Mokry addressed a full audience at the International Symposium on Human Identification. The event brings together people from the forensic DNA industry – criminalists, analysts, lab directors and more – eager to learn about advancements in the field. Over the next 20 minutes, David unveiled a novel enzyme designed to tackle a challenge that has plagued DNA forensics for decades.

Known as “Reduced Stutter Polymerase,” the new enzyme virtually eliminates confounding stutter artifacts in forensic DNA analysis. When incorporated into STR analysis kits, it will dramatically simplify mixed sample deconvolution and help forensic analysts generate accurate profiles of multiple contributors. This technology is the result of years of collaboration between the Genetic Identity R&D Group and the Advanced Technology Group at Promega.

Here’s how they did it, and why it’s so important.

Continue reading “Novel Promega Enzyme Tackles Biggest Challenge in DNA Forensics”

Internships at Promega aren’t about getting coffee for your boss or shredding thousands of old papers. Promega interns take responsibility for complex projects that create notable impacts for their teams, our customers, or Promega as a whole.

Promega hosted 56 interns over the summer in 2024. These students came with unique skills in science, engineering, marketing, IT and so much more. We asked several of them to write about the work they did, as well as the results and benefits they created.

Continue reading “Promega Summer Interns Contribute Skills and Ideas from Logistics to R&D”

If she weren’t working at Promega, Evie Zadzilka probably would’ve spent the summer after high school graduation taking summer classes before reporting to her freshman year at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She runs a small art business, and she might’ve spent more time taking commissions.

Instead, Evie spent the summer before college as an intern in Promega R&D, honing her pipetting skills as she learns about primer design and contributing to the development of a new Promega assay.

“I’ve had a great time,” she says. “I’ll definitely take a lot with me from this experience. I’m so glad I got to do it.”

Evie and her fellow intern Tess Clark were the two high school-aged interns placed at Promega through a relationship with a Madison-based nonprofit called Maydm. This organization helps girls and youth of color in grades 6-12 prepare for careers in STEM by providing educational opportunities and experiences. Through school and summer programs, they strive to disrupt systemic barriers by empowering students like Evie to pursue their dreams as entrepreneurs, developers, engineers and more.

“This will really boost my confidence when I get into lab work next year,” Evie says.

High School Internships at Promega

During their senior year of high school, Tess and Evie were both enrolled in dual-credit courses through Madison College. These classes made them eligible to apply for a high school internship through Maydm.

“I’ve been interested in research for a very long time,” says Tess, another recent school graduate preparing to enter the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “I’m going to major in physics next year, and I don’t have many ties to the biotechnology or chemistry I’ve worked with at Promega. But I wanted hands-on lab experience, so that’s how I ended up here.”

Continue reading “High School Interns Get Hands-On Experience in Promega R&D”

Earlier this summer, Promega Madison welcomed three rising researchers from Europe for an immersive experience on the company’s main campus. Alexandre Lalande (PhD student, International Center for Infectiology Research, France), Margaux Cochard (Post-Doc, University of the Littoral Opal Coast, France) and Emmanuel Heilman (Post-Doc, Medical University of Innsbruck) were selected as Young Researcher Award winners by Promega France and Promega Germany. Their prize trip to the United States included tours of Promega facilities, conversations with Promega leaders and research scientists and hands-on training with emerging technologies.

“It’s really interesting to see how Promega manages to find harmony between the science, the people and the business,” Alexandre says. “When you arrive here you immediately feel comfortable.”

Meeting Industry Scientists

Alexandre says that he has always imagined himself working in academia doing basic research, but he never totally ruled out opportunities in industry.

Continue reading “A Peek Behind the Scenes: Young Researchers Visit Promega Madison”