Roche Diagnostics User Group Meeting

The Roche Diagnostics LightCycler User Group Meeting is held every year in Taupo around October time. The meeting is a chance to hear about LightCycler applications and protocols in both the clinical and research arena and to network with other LightCycler users. From gene expression to viral quantification to genotyping, the relaxed format of the meeting encourages discussions and the opportunity to exchange ideas and useful protocols.

The major educational aspect of the User Group Meeting is the user presentations and all participants are encouraged to prepare a 10 - 15 minute presentation covering use of the LightCycler in their research. Roche Diagnostics NZ Ltd invites one or two LightCycler users from each organisation and will cover the cost of travel, accommodation and meals.

Roche Diagnostics LightCycler User Group Meeting 2010
Date TBA, Millennium Manuels, Taupo

2008 International Guest Speaker Announced
Russell Higuchi, PhD, Roche Molecular Systems Russell is currently Research Leader and Associate Director of the Human Genetics Department of Roche Molecular Systems, where he has worked since 1991. His current focus is on the use of high-throughput sequencing in diagnostics and previous projects include bladder cancer detection, pharmacogenomics and high-throughput genotyping. He is probably best known for his work at Roche on the development of real-time quantitative PCR technology and the instrument required for this technology. Before joining Roche, Russell worked at Cetus Corporation on the development of Polymerase Chain Reaction. Russell’s name is on the ‘original PCR-paper’ by Saiki et al. in Science from 1988, he was co-author with Shirley Kwok on a paper in Nature describing UNG (the much loved Amperase™ enzyme in all our Roche PCR assays) for prevention of false-positive PCR results and he published the principle of real-time PCR in BioTechnology in 1993. His name is on many US Patents around the PCR technology and the devices and methods for real time PCR. And last but not least, not many people will know the ‘link’ between Russell Higuchi and New Zealand; before Cetus, Russell worked for 6 years as a post-doc in the lab of one of our famous NZ scientists, the late Allan Wilson, at the University of California in Berkeley (CA) on cloning and sequencing DNA of extinct species such as the mammoth.