Hybaid thermal cycler

[Jarmo Wahlfors]

>I just saw a demo of the Hybaid thermal cylcer ("OmniGene").  It looked
>nice -- I wondered if anyone in the group had (or had heard of) personal
>experience with this unit.  It's a little different from most I know of: It
>cools (quite rapidly) with a fan; no water or peltier cooling.  It also
>takes either 0.5 ml tubes or the company's proprietary (no others!) 96 well
>plates.
>
>Any comments would be appreciated.

I tested the OmniGene few weeks ago (quite carefully). When using 
tubes the results were OK, but with Hybaid's OmniPlates (very
expensive, by the way) I wasn't satisfied at all. The efficacy with
the plate was *several* orders of magnitude worse than with tubes.
That was apparently due to a very loose fit of the plate to the 
thermoblock. However, I heard afterwards that the producer of the 
plates has designed a new model with more precise fit. I have no
idea, if they were successful in improving the performance.

-JW-