Telomere Length Measurement - AutoFISH

The best telomere length measurement protocol that exists today is HT Q-FISH because it is the only method that can measure the percent of telomeres that are critically short. Many theories, including those of Dr. Andrews, as to why telomere length affects aging and declining health is not because of the average length of telomeres but because of the percentage of telomeres that are critically short. Typically, a telomere that is 10,000 bases in length has no serious effects on cells that are different from the effects seen in cells having telomere lengths of 15,000 bases. It is only when telomeres get down to about 5,000 bases that serious problems occur. So, measuring the percent of telomeres that are short could be far more informative of a person’s health than measuring the average length of telomeres.

Sierra Sciences has invented a protocol to measure the percentage of telomeres that are short (as well as the average telomere lengths) that does not need microscopy making it a lot more affordable, quicker, and easier than HT Q-FISH.

Several methods exist today to measure telomere lengths. They include:

1. Terminal Restriction Fragment (TRF) analysis
2. Q-PCR
3. Flow-FISH
4. HT Q-FISH
5. STELA
6. Universal STELA

However, none of these protocols are very accurate. They also cannot reliably identify which chromosome the telomere is from, and they cannot identify heritable aberrations in the telomere sequences. Nevertheless, the best protocol today is called HT Q-FISH because it will provide not just the “average telomere length” but the “Percent of Telomeres that are Critically Short”. But it is also the most expensive commercially available protocol. In short, telomere length measurement today is only useful in large population studies and is not reliable enough to provide an individual person with a meaningful, reproducible result.

Sierra Sciences has designed two protocols, called AutoFISH and TeloSMRT to measure telomere lengths. AutoFISH that is very similar to HT Q-FISH but is far more affordable than HT Q-FISH because it doesn’t require the use of microscopy. TeloSMRT is a very informative telomere length measurement protocol that measures telomeres very accurately and provides more information than just their length.

A recent review of the field can be found at https://bisouv.com/uncategorized/3560392/cellular-health-single-test-panel-market-2021-data-analysis-and-brief-review/

According to https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/cellular-health-screening-test-market-227041930.html the global cellular health screening market, that includes telomere length measurement, is estimated to reach USD 3.42 billion by 2022 from USD 2.12 billion in 2017, at a CAGR of 10.0% during the forecast period.

AutoFISH

Assembly Research Required

Estimated Time: 1 Year

Employees:

2 Molecular Biologists (Scientists) that are skilled in nucleic acid chemistry.

Lab Space: 400 sf ($130/sf)

Office Space: 100 sf ($130/sf)

Calculations from Worksheet