March Product and News Briefs

March 21, 2013 | News briefs for March including updates from Ingenuity, GeneInsight, University of Auckland, and the Research Resonance Network. New products from SoftGenetics, Accelrys, Cynvenio Biosystems, SGI, PerkinElmer and more.

News Briefs 

Ingenuity Systems and GeneInsight, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Partners HealthCare and a leading developer of software to support reporting for genetic testing laboratories, are collaborating on an integrated workflow solution, encompassing the annotation, analysis, assessment, and reporting of human variants from sequencing-based tests. The current bottleneck for clinical laboratories offering NGS-based tests is the interpretation and clinical assessment of the genetic variants found in each patient. With strong annotation and filtration tools, the interpretative process becomes more scalable for gene panel, exome and whole genome data sets. Through the combined offering, Ingenuity will provide content and software for the analysis and biological interpretation of variants from sequencing-based tests and the Ingenuity offering will be interfaced with the GeneInsight Suite. GeneInsight will provide genetic testing laboratories and providers with networked infrastructure to support interpretation, reporting, and management of genetic data. Ingenuity   

The University of Auckland New Zealand, selected Thomson Reuters Cortellis for Competitive Intelligence to grow the institution’s biomedical research program and ensure future science and business professionals have access to premiere drug development data. Thomson Reuters 

Eurofins MWG Operon has installed a hybrid-core computing system from Convey Computer, providing faster next-generation sequencing and the capability to assemble larger genomes than previously possible. Eurofins MWG Operon acquired the Convey HC-2ex to increase the computational capacity and speed they needed to keep up with advances in NGS technologies. The hybrid-core system allows Eurofins to process massive amounts of sequence data and, in particular, to assemble even the largest genomes with optimal memory and runtime efficiency. “The installation of a Convey hybrid-core computer is part of Eurofins’ strategic goal to grow our genomics business by investing in innovative equipment,” said Bruno Poddevin, Eurofins senior VP, Genomic Services. “The Convey system ensures our leadership in high quality, solution-oriented services for our global customer base.” Eurofins [PDF] 

The Research Resonance Network, a collaborative group of academic research organizations hosted by Forte Research Systems, has announced a new online home for the group along with a suite of tools for improving clinical research processes. Registration is now open to access the first resource to go live on the network, the Site Metrics Registry. This registry is the culmination of seven years of effort driven, in large part, by 20 leading academic medical centers including the Yale Center for Clinical Investigation and Indiana University Simon Cancer Center. Research Resonance Network 

New Product Briefs 

SoftGenetics has launched its Geneticist Assistant NGS Interpretative workbench, a web-based tool for the control, visualization, interpretation and analysis of next generation sequencing data targeted at specific genes for the purpose of identifying potentially pathogenic variants associated with specific conditions such as hereditary colon cancer. Geneticist Assistant is the result of a close developmental collaboration with the Laboratory Medicine, Information Technology and Health Science Research departments of Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN. Geneticist Assistant is designed to integrate multiple data sources into an efficient workflow for laboratories utilizing next-generation sequencing technology. The workbench comes with an array of tools to speed NGS workflows from quality control through laboratory reporting with accessibility either through encrypted internet protocol by multiple collaborating institutions or a local institutional network or through a local computer. Geneticist Assistant 

SoftGenetics also recently announced the release of the latest version (2.3.2) of its leading NGS Analysis software package NextGENe. New applications included in the updated version include Copy Number Variation (CNV), HLA Analysis, as well as a Somatic Mutation mining tool for use with all Next Generation Sequencing platforms including those available from Ion Torrent, Illumina and Roche. New functions and capabilities integrated into this NextGENe software version include compatibility with the new Ion Torrent Suite 3.4 data format; ability to report annotation relative to multiple transcripts; more effective tools for the support of paired reads and removal of duplicate reads from analysis as well as many tools to increase the quality and speed of NGS sequence analysis with NextGENe software. SoftGenetics [PDF] 

Accelrys is expanding its Accelrys Process Management and Compliance Suite with the addition of the Accelrys Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS), transforming the traditional LIMS market with a unified, more-than-LIMS offering that improves overall product quality, increases operational effectiveness and accelerates innovation. The Accelrys LIMS, with a specific focus on scale-up, manufacturing and compliance, offers a unique, process and execution driven architecture for data management that eliminates the complexities, excessive customization and associated lengthy validation requirements inherent to legacy LIMS. The result is streamlined deployments, a substantially lower total cost of ownership and rapid time to value. Accelrys LIMS  

Cynvenio Biosystems, a developer of rare cell isolation technology, has announced the commercial availability of its LiquidBiopsy lab service for the recovery and genomic analysis of circulating tumor cells (CTC) directly from whole blood. LiquidBiopsy is a highly sensitive platform and associated biochemistry to reliably isolate CTCs from whole blood for genomic analysis.  In engineered benchmarks, the system delivered consistently high CTC recovery rates of >90% directly from whole blood, with very low non-target capture of <80 cells/mL blood—at least 2 orders of magnitude higher purity than earlier technologies. The LiquidBiopsy lab service offers three core services involving CTC isolation from whole blood: CTC Sequencing; CTC PCR Analysis; and CTC Recovery and Numeration. LiquidBiopsy  

Biomatters has released Geneious 6.1, which introduces the Feature Finder, which automatically annotates plasmids and other sequences from its database of features; a new fine tuning algorithm that generates much better results faster, and generally using less of your system’s memory; a repeat library mispriming function that prevents binding to known repeats, and a new cloning primer design task specifically for designing primers with fixed 5' binding positions. Geneious 

SGI has introduced InfiniteStorage 5600, a next-generation high-performance storage platform perfectly suited for high performance computing (HPC) and Big Data workloads. Leveraging field-proven modular architecture, the SGI InfiniteStorage 5600 (IS5600) delivers industry-leading performance per spindle, meaning customers can achieve extreme performance requirements while reducing their total investment in hardware. Building on the SGI InfiniteStorage 5000-series modular architecture, the new IS5600 controller adds significantly increased performance. The architecture is also flexible, such that customers can tune the systems to their specific performance and capacity requirements. In data-intensive industries such as manufacturing, media, life sciences and earth sciences, such performance and efficiency are key requirements that the IS5600 is designed to satisfy. SGI 

PerkinElmer has introduced the GFR-Vivo 680 imaging agent, the first fluorescent agent that allows researchers to measure glomerular filtration rate (GFR) non-invasively, in vivo in animals. GFR-Vivo 680, in combination with Fluorescence Molecular Tomography (FMT) imaging, provides a non-invasive approach to generate consistent GFR measurements in animal models of kidney disease, dysfunction, and drug toxicity. GFR-Vivo 680