The SELEX Technology: Aptamer Selection Workshop 2018

The SELEX Technology: Aptamer Selection Workshop 2018

16th - 18th October 2018 – INFORMM, USM Health Campus in collaboration with the Ministry of Higher Education successfully conducted another workshop as part of the series of antibody engineering technology workshops. This workshop focused on Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential enrichment (SELEX) technology for aptamer production. The workshop was part of the Higher Institution Centre of Excellence (HICoE) program after the success of its first workshop on Phage Display technology in March 2018. The purpose of the workshop was to promote the available technology and facilities at INFORMM. The cooperation of two local scientific companies (Nano Life Quest and Chemopharm Sdn Bhd), which were generous to loan equipments and sponsor some materials has helped make this workshop a success.

This 3-day workshop was a combination of seminar and hands-on sessions covering the overview of SELEX technology and aptamer technology given by Dr. Khairul Mohd Fadzli Mustaffa (INFORMM) and Dr Raja Chinnappan (Alfaisal University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) respectively. Meanwhile, the integrated hands-on session covering all SELEX processes (selection, amplification and characterisation) which allowed participants to experience the technique first hand. Collectively, 5 participants from different institutions (UPM, USM and UMP) attended the workshop, and all of them expressed delight and gave positive feedbacks. The attendance of two participants from UMP, highlights the important role INFORMM, Health Campus can function as a research technology hub in the Malaysia East-Coast region.