Thermo Fisher Scientific is offering to donate $1 million worth of rapid DNA analyzers and related technology to support efforts to reunite children and parents recently separated at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Thermo Fisher’s breakthrough technology can go from sample to result in 90 minutes, ensuring fast, easy and accurate DNA matching.
“Thermo Fisher’s Mission is to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer, and this is another great example of how we can provide technology to address a societal challenge,” said Marc N. Casper, president and CEO of Thermo Fisher Scientific.
“We’re proud to offer our rapid DNA testing instruments to help reunite children with their families, here and all over the world.”
Thermo Fisher’s donation is being offered in response to widespread calls for accredited technology solutions.
The company’s RapidHIT system, which can be set up at locations within a day, enables:
- Easy sampling, with self-contained collection kits requiring only a swab of the inside cheek
- Rapid sample processing, going from sample to result in 90 minutes, including only minutes of hands-on prep time
- Privacy and security, with results forwarded directly and only to an authorized party and samples destroyed after processing to prevent future testing.
RapidHIT provides a DNA fingerprint solely for identification purposes, without additional genetic information that can trigger privacy concerns.
(See RapidHIT in Action! The RapidHIT System is the first fully automated sample-to-answer system for STR-based human identification. Courtesy of IntegenX, a part of Thermo Fisher Scientific, and YouTube. Posted on Sep 1, 2015)
This DNA fingerprint is the gold standard for paternity testing and has been an established method of identification for more than 20 years in the U.S.
The technology is also used worldwide for DNA analysis, with more than 140,000 samples run on the rapid DNA platform to date.
The RapidHIT System
