Edico Genome’s DRAGEN Now Available On Illumina’s BaseSpace Sequence Hub

By Bio-IT World Staff

September 19, 2017 | Edico Genome today announced the availability of its DRAGEN Bio-IT Platform on Illumina’s BaseSpace Sequence Hub, enabling users to now run DRAGEN instances to enhance the accuracy and speed of their secondary analysis of next-generation sequencing data.

Powered by Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) new reconfigurable Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) enabled F1 instances, Edico Genome’s ultra-rapid DRAGEN Genome Pipeline features optimized algorithms for mapping, aligning, sorting, duplicate marking, variant calling, and more. As an alternative to traditional CPU-based systems, FPGAs are able to process genomic data at much quicker speeds, enabling customers to keep pace with high throughput demands. By implementing algorithms as logic circuits, DRAGEN offers unprecedented speeds. To date, DRAGEN customers have processed more than 17 petabytes of data.

“Our collaboration with Illumina is founded on a joint mission – to provide researchers with new and innovative ways to enhance their work in the genomics space,” Pieter van Rooyen, chief executive officer at Edico Genome, in a press release. “With the availability of DRAGEN’s Genome Pipeline on BaseSpace Sequence Hub, scientists can more efficiently and seamlessly conduct secondary analysis of genomic data through the online portal, reducing time spent waiting on data and enabling more focus on producing breakthrough results.” 

BaseSpace Sequence Hub is a cloud-based platform that is an extension of Illumina instruments for the acquisition and analysis of genomic data, and manages sequencing runs and Illumina sequencing platforms to optimize operations. In June 2017, Illumina announced BaseSpace Sequence Hub’s unlimited data plan, designed to provide customers with a choice between fixed cost, or pay as you go billing, and help organizations mitigate budgeting uncertainties when scaling their operations. Under this arrangement, new BaseSpace Sequence Hub customers have access to unlimited data storage and can harness the full power of the online app platform for the first year of use. Illumina’s fast and comprehensive Whole Genome Sequencing v6.0 app is also available as part of the unlimited plan.

“Our new unlimited storage and compute plan makes it easier to onboard a new sequencing instrument, particularly our powerful and scalable NovaSeq Series, enabling customers to confidently construct and maintain budgets to keep their organizations on-track,” said Ilya Chorny, associate director, product marketing at Illumina, in a statement. “Our goal is to empower our customers to choose the analysis option that best suits their needs by providing a choice between the DRAGEN Genome Pipeline or Illumina’s Whole Genome Sequencing v6.0 App.”