Next-Generation Sequencing Bioinformatics Tools and Resources Developed

A new Software Development Community supports life scientists and independent software vendors to develop and commercialize innovative bioinformatics applications for next-generation genomic analysis platforms.

Applied Biosystems' (Foster City, CA, USA) Software Development Community has made formal agreements with Geospiza (Seattle, WA USA) and Genome Quest (Westborough, MA, USA) to develop bioinformatics tools for analysis and management of data generated by the SOLiD system, an extremely high throughput next-generation sequencing system. The new relationships should help scientists to realize the full potential of next-generation genomic analysis.

Through its Software Development Community, Applied Biosystems is the first manufacturer of next-generation instrument systems to make software development tools and resources widely available to the bioinformatics community. As a participant in the Software Development Community, Geospiza developed a software system to automate sequencing workflows for capillary electrophoresis (CE) instrumentation, and plans to expand its relationship with Applied Biosystems to include next-generation sequencing instruments. Processing both CE and SOLiD data through a single processing pipeline will enable researchers to integrate and visualize data sets from both technologies.

GenomeQuest has an integrated sequence information system, which, based on its database of reference sequences, can convert raw sequence data from the SOLiD system into insightful information. GenomeQuest's platform should also help SOLiD system users with sequence alignment and analysis, offering increased productivity, and enabling scalability as customers increasingly use next-generation genomic analysis platforms.

Applied Biosystems is a global leader in the development and commercialization of instrument-based systems, consumables, software, and services for the life science market, and is a market leader in the commercialization of DNA sequencing platforms. The SOLiD system, based on sequencing by oligonucleotide ligation and detection, is Applied Biosystems' next-generation system for ultra-high throughput genomic analysis. The SOLiD system utilizes a proprietary technology called stepwise ligation, which generates high quality data for applications, including whole genome sequencing, chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP), microbial and eukaryotic resequencing, digital karyotyping, medical sequencing, genotyping, gene expression, and small RNA discovery.

Geospiza combines deep life science and information technology (IT) expertise to provide highly scalable, fully integrated regulatory compliant informatics platforms for scaling their laboratory workflow, scientific data management, and analytics workflows. The company's customers are primarily molecular diagnostic laboratories, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, contract core labs, large research institutes and universities, involved in clinical DNA testing, manufacturing DNA based bio-therapeutics, delivering sequencing services to outside customers and basic life science research and discovery efforts.

GenomeQuest is a genomic information company providing applications and services to manage and mine the world's sequence data. The company's flagship product, GenomeQuest, is a web-based sequence information platform that enables sequence information specialists to exploit genomic data resources including next-generation sequencing tools and worldwide biologic sequence reference databases.


Related Links:
Applied Biosystems
Geospiza
Genome Quest