Transgenomic, Inc. is a global biotechnology company advancing personalized medicine in cardiology, oncology, and inherited diseases. It deals with patient testing, biomarker identification, and genetic assays through clinical trials on patients. Transgenomic Company recently got a patent of ICE COLD-PCR technology from U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, US20130309724A1.

Methods of using polymerase chain reactions to enrich a target sequence in a sample containing reference sequences and target sequences having high homology and amplifiable by the same primer pair are provided herein. In particular the methods provide a robust means to improve the fold enrichment of the target sequence and minimize reaction-to-reaction, well-to-well and run-to-run variations in the enrichment methods.

ICE COLD-PCR (Improved and Complete Enrichment CO-amplification at Lower Denaturation temperature) was originated by Dana- Farber Cancer Institute. It basically helps to detect and confirm the mutations occurred in double stranded DNA at a higher level. In ICE COLD-PCR mutant DNA amplification and identification occurs by exploiting differences in denaturation temperatures between mutant DNA duplexes and wild-type (normal)/ blocker DNA duplexes. This technique helps to find out even the single mutation that occur in a base pair of wild-type genes. Besides this, ICE COLD-PCR technology is not limited only for single mutation identification but it also identifies any mutation in different location of same duplex of DNA.

ICE COLD-PCR helps to diagnose cancer, tumor and prenatal and infectious diseases. The new U.S. patent did changes in COLD-PCR to make it better. Transgenomic Company now uses ICE COLD-PCR technology along with their high sensitivity mutation detection technologies, such as SURVEYOR Scan and Blocker Sequencing.