A conversation with Rasa Sehlmeyer, highQu

After Rasa Sehlmeyer gained her degree in molecular biology and rounded off her education with a master's in genetics, she began her professional career at Fermentas. At that time, Fermentas was already known worldwide for its FastDigest^®, conventional restriction enzymes and DNA ladders. At first, she cloned various enzymes and polymerases in the research department, before moving to customer service, and then later acquiring some marketing experience.

She combines her specialist knowledge of genetics with her practical customer service experience, which helps her to keep track of rival products. With the necessary groundwork for launching her own company already in place, she founded highQu – an innovative biotech company which has dedicated itself to the task of producing the products scientists really want – in collaboration with her husband, Dr. Frank Sehlmeyer. And because every scientist typically wants to make a monumental, absolutely invaluable contribution to research, if possible without having to worry about complex manufacturing protocols, highQu's task was professionally quite straightforward. So since its inception, the company has been supplying its customers with easy-to-use products of the highest quality.

FastDigest® is a registered trademark of Thermo Fisher Scientific.

We wanted to ask Ms. Sehlmeyer one or two more questions:

You have focused on simplicity in what is actually a very complex scientific field. So how has that been achieved?

At highQu, we aim to create products which become simple tools in the hands of scientists. What constitutes a good tool? Uncompromising performance, dependable results, ease of use – and of course, nobody wants to read a 50-page manual before they can even get to use the tool! So we make our products professional, yet simple to work with. For example, our Take5 DNA Ladders are self-explanatory and ready to use – they take 5 microlitres, load easily into the gel, and run electrophoresis.

There's no need to do anything else, just enjoy the result. Or our ALLin PCR buffers – you just add the primers and template, all the rest is in the buffer. There's no need to buy and mix dNTPS, and no need for PCR enhancers. Just set up your PCR and appreciate the rapid results.

Achieving PCR results in just minutes: How does that work?

It really is as easy as it sounds – prepare the ready-to-go PCR master mix by mixing highQu ALLin HS Red Taq Mastermix (2X) 1:1 with water (these are supplied together). Put 50 microlitres of this mix into the PCR vials and add your crude samples as templates. Our enzymes are very robust, so your sample really can be "crude" – something like 0.5 microlitres of blood, for example, or 1 microlitre from a 100-microlitre solution you just had your buccal swab in … You can run a rapid PCR, and load directly on the agarose gel, because our pre-mixed PCR mix formulation already contains the loading dye.

In most laboratories, humans extract the DNA to get clean, reliable samples. But you claim there's no need to waste time doing this. Why?

Don't get me wrong, of course you have to purify large quantities of high-quality gDNA in case you plan to do further experiments, such as cloning, sequencing, hybridization etc. But, as long as you're looking for just a few PCR reactions, there's no need for gDNA extraction. Don't worry about whether the polymerase can handle any amplifying of impure templates, all our highQu PCR enzymes and mixes are actually very robust. But our SampleIN Direct PCR Kit is a perfect solution for crude-sample PCR. It's designed to produce a one-millilitre crude extract within a few minutes, no matter whether there's blood, buccal swabs, mice ear punches, or hair follicles. One microlitre of this extract can be used right away for rapid, direct PCR – or even weeks later (but store it at -20°C). And once again, the PCR products will be ready to load onto the gel!

Up till now, 20 kb DNA amplifications have proved a challenge: Have you just launched a new product to achieve this, which could become a standard method in the future?

We have to be realistic here. I'm afraid that amplifications of 20 kb and more will still be a challenging task for the next few years. However, we can promise that with our new ALLin Mega HiFi DNA Polymerase product, mixes or hot-start version, you should be able to look forward to great results much faster, with less optimization, less time investment, and less troubleshooting. We have aimed for something professional yet simple – Mega HiFi is designed to provide 100X greater fidelity than Taq polymerase, and excellent performance both in fast cycling and in long PCR. This enzyme is also great for shorter templates and for very complex amplification, which is what makes it such a great choice for NGS.

Your products have already helped to simplify processes, saving time and money by making equipment easier to use – but is there a particular product on your wish list you would like to bring to the market?

We certainly have lots of new ideas; we are continuously developing our portfolio and looking for better, faster solutions that will appear on lab benches next year. We are planning new products to simplify and accelerate NGS workflows, DNA electrophoresis, and PCR.