Promega News and Events

Awakening From Despair to Awe: 2021 International Forum on Consciousness

Posted on by Natalie Larsen
Banner for the International Forum on Consciousness 2021

Each year, the International Forum on Consciousness draws thought leaders from around the world to explore important, and often challenging, topics related to the exploration of consciousness. The theme for this year, Consciousness of Connection: Awakening from Despair to Awe, is an invitation to broaden curiosity about connection and take a closer look at the variety of connections that we forge in our lives.

Participants will examine the kinds of connections that transcend our individual selves and reach our inner desire to be part of an interconnected world, perhaps to transform our current sense of the individual, community, and society, from independent to interdependent. More specifically, the Forum will examine connection across the primary aspects of our lives with:

  • Self, and the many selves in our amazing neural networks
  • Others, and the multiple communities we intersect
  • Nature, and the breadth of life forms that surround us
Continue reading “Awakening From Despair to Awe: 2021 International Forum on Consciousness”

Growing Through Sustainability Sensibilities

Posted on by Riley Bell
Inside Kornberg Center at our Fitchburg, WI campus.

We recently announced the opening of our newly constructed Kornberg Center research and development facility on our Fitchburg, WI campus. While we grow our company through new facilities around the globe, it is vitally important that we expand our sustainability efforts along the way. We are committed to preserving and improving our environment for a thriving future.

Prioritizing Sustainability with Best Practices from Around the World

Incorporating sustainability best practices from around the world is key to our long-term planning. Each new Promega facility is designed to meet ambitious sustainability objectives, and innovations incorporated in one project inform the next. We also align projects to meet United Nations Global Compact Sustainable Development Goals. All of our locations collectively contribute to minimizing the effect we have on our environment.

Here are a few of many sustainability initiatives Promega practices around the world:

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Promega Biotech Ibérica Earns Recognition for Contributions to the COVID-19 Pandemic Response in Spain

Posted on by Promega

Small- and medium-sized companies are critical to the Spanish economy. During 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic made business difficult for many of these companies, yet they have demonstrated strength and resourcefulness and have led the pandemic recovery in Spain in many ways. Recently, Promega Biotech Ibérica was recognized with a Madrid Community SME (small- and medium-sized business) Award along with 15 other companies. The awards were presented by Manuel Giménez, Minister of Economy, Employment and Competitiveness of the Madrid Region, Andres Navarro delegate director of La Razón, and Francisco Marhuenda, director of La Razón. As part of the award, Promega Biotech Ibérica General Manager, Gijs Jochems, was interviewed about the award and Promega’s work in the region.

Gijs Jochems, General Manager of Promega Biotech Ibérica accepts the Madrid Community SME Award.
Gijs Jochems, General Manager of Promega Biotech Ibérica accepts the Madrid Community SME Award.

According to Gijs Jochems, General Manager of Promega Biotech Ibérica, while Promega Corporation is an American multinational company, it remains privately held, which offers a great deal of flexibility to the subsidiaries to adapt to local needs. It also allows the company to place increased emphasis on employee well-being (critical during the pandemic), reinvest profits in research and development, and work to mitigate the impact of company activities on the environment. All these business practices reflect a long-term vision of sustainable business growth.

Continue reading “Promega Biotech Ibérica Earns Recognition for Contributions to the COVID-19 Pandemic Response in Spain”

Celebrating 30 Years of “Glo-ing” Research

Posted on by Promega

This post is written by guest blogger, Amy Landreman, PhD, Sr. Product Manger at Promega Corporation.

In December of 1990, Promega first discussed the use of firefly luciferase (luc) as an emerging reporter technology in the article, Firefly Luciferase: A New Tool for Molecular Biologists. At the time, the gene coding chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (cat)  was most commonly used by researchers, but it was thought that the bioluminescent properties of firefly luciferase, extreme sensitivity and rapid simple detection, could make a significant difference in how molecular biologists tackled their research. Several months later, the first firefly luciferase reporter vectors and detection reagents became available as products, making this new technology more broadly accessible to the research community. Today firefly luciferase is no longer a “new tool”, with it and many other bioluminescent reporter technologies being standard elements of the modern research toolbox.

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2020 Promega Award for Biochemistry Recognizes Viral Research, Protein Engineering

Posted on by Jordan Villanueva
Promega Award for Biochemistry image

The 2020 Promega Award for Biochemistry ceremony was a bit different this year. Promega Beijing typically announces the award recipients in a ceremony at the biannual meeting of the Chinese Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (CSBMB). As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 conference was moved online. Despite the unusual circumstances, Promega Beijing held a virtual ceremony to grant the award to Dr. Peng Chen and Dr. Haitao Yang.

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Rapid COVID-19 Testing, International Collaboration, and a Family Favor

Posted on by Jordan Villanueva

When the COVID-19 pandemic descended on New York in March 2020, Christopher Mason, PhD, knew he was in a unique position to contribute. The Mason Lab specializes in sequencing and computational methods in functional genomics – valuable expertise for addressing an emerging infectious disease. Within days, Chris and his team were helping to analyze patient data, as well as developing new tests and detection methods for the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

3d model of coronavirus covid-19

The Mason Lab developed protocols for a simple COVID-19 detection test that requires less time and equipment than common PCR methods. Their subsequent article detailing these methods quickly gained widespread attention, and Chris found himself fielding an endless stream of questions and requests.

During the frenzy, Chris received a call from his older brother. Cory Mason is the mayor of Racine, Wisconsin, the brothers’ hometown.

“He said he saw me tweeting about our new test,” Chris says. “Then he asked me, ‘What if we set it up here in Wisconsin?’’

Continue reading “Rapid COVID-19 Testing, International Collaboration, and a Family Favor”

Emergency Use Authorization: The What, the Why and the How

Posted on by Promega

This blog is written by guest blogger, Heather Tomlinson, former Director of Clinical Diagnostics at Promega.

Finding safe and effective treatments for human diseases takes time.  Medication and diagnostic tests can take decades to discover, develop and prove safe and effective.  In the United States, the FDA stands as the gold-standard gatekeeper to ensure that treatments and tests are reliable and safe. The time we wait in review and clearance means less risk of ineffective or unsafe treatments.

And yet, in a pandemic, we are behind before we even start the race to develop diagnostic tests, so critical for understanding how an infectious disease is spreading. That is when processes like the FDA’s fast track of Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) are critical. Such authorization allows scientists and clinicians to be nimble and provide the best possible test protocol as quickly as possible, with the understanding that these protocols will continue to be evaluated and improved as new information becomes available. The EUA focuses resources and accelerates reviews that keep science at the fore and gets us our best chance at staying safe and healing.

The Maxwell 48 RSC Instrument and the Maxwell RSC Total Viral Nucleic Acid Isolation Kit are now listed as options within the CDC EUA protocol.

For scientists working around the clock, the FDA’s EUA process is ready to review and respond. Getting an EUA  gives clinical labs a very specific and tested resource to guide them to the tools and tests to use in a crisis.

Typically the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) will develop the first test or protocol that receives FDA EUA in response to a crisis like a pandemic.  For COVID-19 the CDC 2019-Novel Coronavirus Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel received FDA EUA clearance in early February. This is the test protocol used by the public health labs that work with the CDC and test manufacturers around the world.

Throughout a crisis such as the current pandemic, scientists continually work to improve the testing protocols and add options to the EUA protocols. This enables more flexibility in the test protocols. Promega is fortunate to play a part of the CDC EUA equation for diagnostic testing. Our GoTaq® Probe 1-Step PRT-qPCR System is one of a few approved options for master mixes in the  CDC qPCR diagnostic test,  and now our medium-throughput Maxwell 48 Instrument and Maxwell Viral Total Nucleic Acid Purification Kit  were added to the CDC protocol as an option for the RNA isolation step as well. These additions to the CDC EUA means that laboratories have more resources at their disposal for the diagnostic testing which is so critical to effective pandemic response.

The Emergency Use Authorization provides the FDA guidance to strengthen our nation’s public health during emergencies, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. The EUA allows continual improvement of an authorized protocol through the collaborative efforts scientists in all academia, government and industry to identify and qualify the most reliable technologies and systems, giving labs more flexibility as new products are added as options.

Dr. Tomlinson was the Director for the Global Clinical Diagnostics Strategic Business Unit at Promega Corporation bringing over 15 years of experience in clinical diagnostic test development. She was responsible for leading the team that drives strategy in the clinical market for Promega. Her background was in infectious disease diagnostic testing, with a focus on HIV drug resistance and evolution. Her last work focused on oncology companion diagnostic test development.  Heather was an accomplished international presenter, delivering conference presentations in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Heather passed away in 2023.

Related Posts

Promega Leverages Long-Time Experience in MSI Detection with European Launch of CE-Marked IVD Assay for Microsatellite Instability

Posted on by Kelly Grooms

The genetic abnormality called microsatellite instability, or MSI, has been linked to cancer since its discovery in 1993 (1). MSI is the accumulation of insertion or deletion errors at microsatellite repeat sequences in cancer cells and results from a functional deficiency within one or more major DNA mismatch repair proteins (dMMR).  This deficiency, and the resulting genetic instability, is closely related to the carcinogenicity of tumors (2).

Historically MSI has been used to screen for Lynch Syndrome, a dominant hereditary cancer propensity. More recently, tumors with deficient MMR function have been identified as being more likely to respond to immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapies (3.). Because MSI can be the first evidence of an MMR deficiency, MSI-High status is predictive of a positive response to immunotherapies such as ICI therapies. (3).

Learn more about MSI in this short animation.
Continue reading “Promega Leverages Long-Time Experience in MSI Detection with European Launch of CE-Marked IVD Assay for Microsatellite Instability”

Wisconsin’s Public-Private Partnership to Increase COVID-19 Testing Capacity

Posted on by Promega

This blog is written by Sara Mann, General Manger, Promega North America Branch

Promega is part of a new public-private partnership among Wisconsin industry leaders to increase the state’s laboratory testing capacity for COVID-19. I am pleased to represent Promega in this effort. The valuable insight we at Promega are gaining every day through our participation in this innovative partnership not only benefits Wisconsin labs, it also provides unique understandings about how we can best meet the testing needs of our customers around the world.

Promega Maxwell Instrument shown in a laboratory.

The new partnership includes laboratory support from Exact Sciences, Marshfield Clinic Health System, UW Health, as well as Promega. These organizations, along with the Wisconsin Clinical Lab Network, are sharing knowledge, resources, and technology to bolster Wisconsin’s testing capacity. Our goal is to help labs find the quickest approach to the most tests with their validated methods.

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Meeting Customer Needs in Response to Market Dynamics: Responding to the Coronavirus Pandemic

Posted on by Promega

Today’s blog is written by Chuck York, VP of Manufacturing Operations at Promega.

Coronavirus SARS-2-CoV continues to fuel unprecedented demand for COVID-19 related products. Once a term relegated to virology research labs, “coronavirus” is now a household term and a global crisis that has upended lives, disrupted entire economies and shaken our sense of normalcy.

Clinicians, researchers, government officials and the general public are understandably concerned about the availability of reagents for coronavirus testing. At Promega, we are hearing the needs and concerns of our scientific colleagues and partners, and we are doing all that we can to help alleviate them.

At Promega, we are hearing the needs and concerns of our scientific colleagues and partners, and we are doing all that we can to help alleviate them.

As a global company with thousands of products, we have been meeting customer demand in response to market dynamics for decades. Our long-term approach has served customers well. Our efforts to provide support for the COVID-19 response began in early January, with our work with our colleagues and customers in China. We are applying what we’ve learned to propel us forward in the most efficient way now.  

We continue to increase production of all COVID-19 related reagents and instruments due to an unprecedented increase in global demand. Production lines that were running one shift 5 days a week are now operating 3 shifts seven days a week, and we continue to take measures to increase our manufacturing capacity.

Continue reading “Meeting Customer Needs in Response to Market Dynamics: Responding to the Coronavirus Pandemic”