Acton, Massachusetts, February 2004 - As the progression from cDNA arrays to oligos continues, Corning Life Sciences enters the market with a system that offers a substrate for covalent attachment of short oligonucleotides (approximately 30-mers) with reagents for printing and hybridization and array washing.

Pronto!™ Universal Hybridization Kits are now optimized for use with Corning® Epoxide Coated Slides. "The slides are manufactured using the same quality controls as our UltraGAPS™ Slides with lot to lot consistency to ensure reliable and reproducible results every time," said Michael Briggs Ph.D., applications scientist Corning Life Sciences. "Because it is an integrated system the result is high quality, high density arrays with more consistent data."

The product offerings include an Epoxide Slide Starter Kit that consists of 10 Epoxide Slides, 5mL Epoxide Spotting Solution and 0.8mL Pronto!™ Short Oligo Hybridization Solution. Epoxide Slides are sold separately with or without bar codes in packs of 25 slides. Pronto!™ Universal Hybridization Kits are packaged for processing 10 or 25 arrays. The Pronto!™ Epoxide Spotting Solution is sold in bulk.

To order an Epoxide Slide Starter Kit or for additional information on Corning Life Sciences products or services, please contact a customer service representative at 1-800-492-1110, toll free in the United States, (+1) 978-635-2200 internationally, or visit www.corning.com/lifesciences.

Corning Incorporated (www.corning.com) is a diversified technology company that concentrates its efforts on high-impact growth opportunities. Corning combines its expertise in specialty glass, ceramic materials, polymers and the manipulation of the properties of light, with strong process and manufacturing capabilities to develop, engineer and commercialize significant innovative products for the telecommunications, information display, environmental, semiconductor, and life sciences industries.

For addition information, contact:

Corning Incorporated
Life Sciences
Media Communications Representative
Julie Eckmann
45 Nagog Park
Acton, MA 01720
Tel: 978.635.2296
E-mail:eckmannj@corning.com