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Sigma Life Science, the innovative biological products and services research business of Sigma-Aldrich^® (Nasdaq: SIAL), today announced the release of OligoArchitect^TM, an online primer and probe design tool. This freely available tool offers automated design of probes and primers for real-time qPCR assays, powered by the industry standard Beacon Designer^TM platform from PREMIER Biosoft, it complements Sigma Life Science's comprehensive portfolio of oligonucleotide and qPCR products and customized oligonucleotide services. To access the OligoArchitect tool, visit wherebiobegins.com/probedesignonline. 

The easy-to-use OligoArchitect software uses the latest probe design algorithms, providing results in real time and supporting templates of up to 10,000 base pairs. It also allows users to adjust various input parameters - such as homopolymer run/repeat maximum length, G/C clamp length and maximum primer pair T_m mismatch - to help optimize probe or primer design. 

"After years of successful use internally by our technical support team, we wanted to offer this powerful tool directly to our customers," said Tom Russell, Product Manager at Sigma Life Science. "We chose to use Beacon Designer because it offers best-in-class performance and is highly regarded by the research community." 

OligoArchitect currently supports both SYBR^® Green I and dual-labeled probe (5' nuclease assay) detection chemistries with additional detection chemistries and assays expected to be added later this year, making it ideally suited to key applications in traditional PCR, endpoint genotyping, gene expression analysis, genomic copy number determination, allele discrimination, SNP detection and haplotyping. 

For more information about Sigma Life Science's custom oligonucelotides services, please visit www.wherebiobegins.com/oligos.