AAT Bioquest Offers High-Performance Assays, Custom Services

Bioreagents company AAT Bioquest, which is now headquartered at Hacienda, specializes in assay technologies. Assays are used to detect, quantify, and study the activity of biological molecules. The company's high-performance products enable life science researchers to better understand biochemistry, immunology, cell biology, and molecular biology, according to officials. The company’s products include the Fluo-8, Cal-520, Cal-590, Cal-630, Calbryte-520, and FLIPR calcium assay kits. AAT Bioquest also offers a wide range of other fluorescent ion indicators, fluorescent labeling reagents, and cell and in vivo imaging probes.

“We are not only one of the most creative problem-solvers in our industry, with the patents and awards to prove it, but what we really pride ourselves on is being adaptable and communicative with our clients,” says K. Chico, Communications Manager for the company. “No matter how tough the problem, we do our level best to work with what researchers are dealing with, not only for common difficulties like low conjugation yield, for example, but also more complex ones such as non-cytotoxic intracellular ion visualization.”

In addition to its standard products, AAT Bioquest also offers custom services to support clients with special research needs. For example, one client was having problems while working to fluorescently label live bacteria. “This deceptively simple-sounding task is often challenging, as some model organisms do not easily express the modified proteins, and even effective dyes are sometimes toxic or heavily inhibit bacterial growth,” explains Chico. “Our MycoLight dyes were already in use by this client as they are known to be very low toxicity, but this particular experiment was giving them enough trouble that they needed additional support. In the end, we were able to solve their issue so that they were able to visualize their bacteria with bright signal while not losing normal growth patterns.”

The company eventually added a new reagent to its catalog from the experience and now offers two related dyes, MycoLight Green JJ98 and JJ99. There are rarely one-size-fits all solutions for scientific questions, according to Chico, which makes adapting to new challenges essential. AAT Bioquest can quickly adapt to serve its clients in part because of the company’s strong emphasis on interdepartmental collaboration and mentorship.

“The biotechnology industry is one that involves not only scientists themselves but all of the problems they're solving, including medical research, diagnostics, and a thousand other fields–all with just as many unique factors. As such, it's a multidisciplinary, multinational, multicultural area that frequently has the most cooperation across languages and generations. We like to think we exemplify this egalitarianism, with industry leaders and bright early-career researchers all on our roster, from all over the world.”

In September 2022, AAT Bioquest officially moved its headquarters to Hacienda, where nearly 40 employees are located. The company has a sister company in China and distribution agreements worldwide. “We have been growing far faster than we had anticipated in the past few years, which is an excellent problem to have,” says Chico. “Hacienda was not only in a great location already but had the space and resources for us to expand beyond what our prior office was able to sustain. Now that we are settled here we will be adding more staff starting this year.”

For more information about AAT Bioquest, please visit www.aatbio.com, www.twitter.com/AATBioquest, www.facebook.com/AATBioquest, www.linkedin.com/company/aat-bioquest, or www.aatbioquest.blogspot.com.

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