totheletter DNA | Biotechnology company

totheletter DNA

Phone: +61 484 939 525

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• Science, technology & engineering
• Biotechnology company

24.01.2022 Understandably, customers ask us about our success rates. We wanted to get our processes in order before advertising what these have been. To date, when we find DNA, we are achieving around 25 - 30% successful generation of autosomal DNA files from envelopes and stamps that can be used for matching on GEDmatch. We want to get this up to at least 50% with our new techniques. Obviously some envelopes will have no useable DNA or DNA degraded to such an extent that it is not usea...ble. Obtaining useful DNA is not a simple, automated process. Each sample is dealt with individually in our lab and time, effort and various steps are required. Before placing an order, we ask that customers consider their chances and their appetite for risk. One thing we can assure you of is our constant commitment to improving our results.

24.01.2022 Was your deceased loved-one in a medical facility at some point? Have you checked to see if the facility still holds their tissue or other sample? Hospitals and other medical facilities often take a sample from patients, with varying rules around the length of time they retain them. These sample types can be an invaluable source of DNA. We can assist with providing documentation to enable the release of a sample from such a facility, and undertake processing of the DNA for y...ou. *** Please note, you will need to contact the facility yourself in the first instance to determine whether they retain a sample for your loved one. You also need to ask them to provide contact details, and information on their process, so we can liaise with the correct person to obtain any sample they may have. *** Please email us at [email protected] if you'd like further information.

23.01.2022 GEDmatch uploads are being finalised over the next few days. We'll contact each customer individually about their file. Whole Genome Amplification candidates - we are still working this through. There are some important challenges to be resolved before we progress our precious DNA samples through the process. This is a high priority for us, so while all may seem quiet on the home front, we are working away on this. Again, we will contact individual customers with WGA candidates when we have further information. There is also advancements underway in the Next Generation Sequencing arena that may provide opportunities for our sample types. totheletter DNA will be attending the American Academy of Forensic Sciences annual conference next week in Anaheim, California, and expect to find out more!

22.01.2022 totheletter DNA has just signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Verogen to enable our files to continue to be uploaded to GEDmatch. We have a few files that had been delayed because of this - so will be aiming to get them on GEDmatch asap. We will contact relevant customers personally once we've completed this. Thanks to Verogen for sorting this out so quickly for us!

17.01.2022 Batch 11 update: While our batch is prepped and ready to go, we have been waiting for two customer orders to arrive to include in the batch. We are visiting the post office weekly, and have been told that envelopes where customers have requested a return will be sent by sea! Very retro indeed! This indicates that the post is going to be slow. We don't know if the same stands for items being sent to us from overseas, but expect delays are likely.... We will be waiting until this Friday to see if the orders managed to get on a plane to us. In any case we will be submitting the batch as is for extraction and quality assessment on Monday 27 April 2020. The full cycle will take four weeks once the samples hit the lab (which will be mid next week). Customers in this batch are welcome to email at any time for further updates.

13.01.2022 We have now notified all Batch 11 customers of their results. Of 17 samples, five had no DNA at all. In all cases, the microarray (the cheaper option) is not suitable for downstream processing. Currently Whole Genome Sequencing is the only option open to us, which is expensive and high risk (significant expenditure with a chance of failure). Because of this, we are working on a more cost-effective solution for our customers. We expect to deliver this by the end of this year. ...We will be holding off accepting more orders for envelopes and stamps until we can offer our customers a better chance of success. We will provide updates both here and on our web site totheletterDNA.com with more news as it happens. We thank all our wonderful customers for their support to date. We assure you we are 100% committed to delivering viable, cost-effective solutions to you.

10.01.2022 We are receiving a number of enquiries asking if we are accepting envelopes and stamps for extraction. We had hoped to have a cost-effective alternative to Whole Genome Sequencing available for our customers by December this year, but we’re not there yet. We are not prepared to accept further orders until we can provide the best possible chance of success at a reasonable price. Because of that, we are still on hold with this artefact type. We are continuing to assess other ...artefact types on a case by case basis. As well as this, we are actively processing DNA samples of the recently deceased via funeral homes for the next of kin. Genotyping is most often a suitable option for this sample type. We would like to assure our customers we are working hard to provide robust, cost effective solutions, and wish you all a happy holiday season and a healthy 2021.

05.01.2022 Exciting news - Australian government funding has been assigned for a National DNA Program for Unidentified and Missing Persons. This is an Australian Federal Police (AFP) operation headed by DNA forensic biologist Dr Jodie Ward. We are looking forward to seeing unidentified remains cases resolved during the course of the project. More info is available in this article.... https://www.news.com.au//news-story/2cb94978be183c5f213580

05.01.2022 The whole world has changed! Firstly we hope that you and your families are safe and well during this time. Please stay safe! At this stage we don’t appear to be too affected by the restrictions that are being put in place. Our service providers are still up and running and doing business as usual. Therefore, Batch 11 is still on track for extraction and QC in April. Clients with other samples will be communicated with on a case by case basis over the next two weeks. We ment...ioned too that totheletter DNA is processing samples from clients whose deceased loved-one spent time in hospital. In some of these cases, the hospital may have taken a tissue or other sample from the person. Many of these samples would be what is called an FFPE sample (tissue based in paraffin). Each hospital may have its own guidelines around storage and disposal, but we expect samples would be retained for an average of 10 years. Obviously, right now is not a good time to be pursuing this with hospitals that have other priorities. But we mention this to keep in mind, as an FFPE-based sample offers a good chance of successful DNA extraction and genotyping. We wish everyone a safe passage through this time.

05.01.2022 Envelope, stamp and postcard orders will be prepared in Australia and processed in the USA. We have had some customers send their samples to Australia via regular post. All these samples have arrived, and in fact, at times with less "hassle" than samples sent via Registered Post or a tracking service. It is up to the customer to send the item via the method they prefer. We will always return the item to you via Registered Post or a tracking service (when an order for the item...'s return is placed by the customer). Other artefacts will be prepared and processed in the USA. Details of where to send your artefact/s will be provided to you after discussion with you about your artefact and order when you email us at [email protected]. If you require your artefact to be returned, we will advise you of the cost at the same time.

04.01.2022 We posted a few weeks ago about postage prices from the USA. Below is a photo of two items we collected from the Post Office today. We understand that even with registered post it can be difficult to get tracking information once the item has left its country of origin. Both sent from the USA, the more expensive sent two days after the cheaper - and both arrived safe and sound. Customers can weigh up their appetite for risk versus the massive difference in pricing when deciding what category under which to post their item to us. If you have paid for your item to be returned, we will always return it as registered post.

04.01.2022 It’s some time since we provided an update but the whole world has changed. We hope all our followers are well and safe. We are putting a hold on envelope and stamp extractions until around the end of this year. We have a batch underway now, and that will be the last for a while. This is because we are working on a cheaper, more robust solution for the processing of the DNA that we find. We will continue to accept other artefacts for extraction after discussion with the cli...ent of their particular case. At this point in time Whole Genome Sequencing is the likely downstream process for most artefacts. Tissue samples are likely to continue to be able to be processed with genotyping. Please email us at [email protected] if you would like an update for your particular sample with us.

03.01.2022 While we've got the formalities sorted with GEDmatch, we're still working through the technical side of things. We expect to be uploading files again in the next few days. Customers waiting to hear how their uploads have gone will be notified as soon as we've ironed out these final bugs.

01.01.2022 Batch 11 now extracted, awaiting quality check results. We will contact all customers as soon as we have the data - we expect before the end of next week.

01.01.2022 A lot has been happening since we last posted, and we've posted about it on our website here: https://www.totheletterdna.com/news GEDmatch has recently changed their security measures and as a result our files are not uploading successfully. We've talked with the CEO of Verogen (GEDmatch's new owner) who has assured us that we will continue to be able to upload totheletter DNA files. We expect to have this small hiccough resolved within the next few weeks.... We are also improving our extraction procedures with the aim of having more files succeed through genotyping. This is the preferred mode of processing for the majority of our customers - a lot cheaper and more simple than Whole Genome Sequencing. We can provide customers with information on the success of extractions within 8 to 12 weeks of receiving their sample. We now require a further 8 to 12 weeks for further processing. A number of customers have now had extracted DNA with our lab for some time. We expect these will be finalised in the next six weeks. Moving forward, things will be a lot more streamlined, we are happy to say. Thank you to all our wonderful customers and followers for your interest and support over the last 18 months.