agbt
dgmacarthur | March 10, 2010Dan Koboldt has a very nice recap of the various sequencing technologies presented at last week's Advances in Genome Biology and Technology meeting. I totally agree with his central point:
Something had been bothering me about the sequencing-company presentations this year, and I finally realized what it was. During AGBT 2009, every player was gunning to take over the world. This year it seems like every sequencing platform has a niche in mind.
The recent proliferation of sequencing technologies - each with their own characteristic profile of strengths and weaknesses - has been bewildering…
dgmacarthur | February 28, 2010The main theme of this year's Advances in Genome Biology and Technology meeting should come as no surprise to regular readers: sequencing. Generating as many bases of DNA sequence as quickly, cheaply and accurately as possible is the goal of the moment, and the number of companies jostling to achieve that goal is growing rapidly.
The meeting saw impressive performances from established players in the field, especially Illumina: their new HiSeq 2000 instrument seems to have dug in as the platform of choice for generating vast amounts of high-quality short-read data. Life Technologies seem to…
dgmacarthur | February 26, 2010Stephen Turner from Pacific Biosciences gave a dramatic presentation this afternoon launching PacBio's new third-generation sequencing instrument. The room was packed for the seminar, with a palpable buzz, and Turner's presentation was preceded by a theatrical introduction from PacBio CEO Hugh Martin.
The crescendo of Turner's presentation was the unveiling of a video showing the new (and enormous) PacBio instrument, which has been tucked away in a room here at AGBT and revealed to a trickle of VIPs (including Bio-IT World's Kevin Davies) - if that's the kind of thing you're into, PacBio…
dgmacarthur | February 26, 2010I've been remiss in blogging from the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology meeting here in Marco Island, Florida, primarily due to some panic-stricken last-minute changes to the slides for my own presentation last night.
Fortunately the conference has been extremely well-covered by others: Sanger colleague Luke Jostins has blog posts up summarising day 1 and day 2 of the meeting; Dan Koboldt from MassGenomics has his first impressions and a review of the cancer genomics session; and Anthony Fejes is continuing the tradition of publishing extensive notes on every talk he attends.
There…
dgmacarthur | February 22, 2010I'll be at the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology meeting in Marco Island, Florida for the next week, soaking up sun and genomics, keeping my eye out for the anticipated major announcements from sequencing companies and researchers, and quietly panicking about my presentation on Thursday. You'll hear more about the meeting from me and the other bloggers there - Luke Jostins, David Dooling, Dan Koboldt and Anthony Fejes - over the next week.
It's amazing to think that it was at the same meeting in 2009 - just one year ago - that Complete Genomics emerged dramatically from stealth mode…
dgmacarthur | January 12, 2010The big news from the JP Morgan investment conference today is the announcement of a brand new shiny sequencing machine from Illumina, the HiSeq 2000. The new machine boasts an impressive set of statistics, and looks likely to gradually replace Illumina's GAIIx as the workhorse of most modern sequencing facilities.
So, how excited should we be?
Let's be clear about this up front: this new machine, while impressive, represents an incremental advance rather than a dramatic technological leap forward. This is still second-generation sequencing, generating relatively small snippets of DNA…
dgmacarthur | March 6, 2009I doubt anyone's noticed, but I recently rearranged my "Blogs I Read" menu to give appropriate prominence to three fellow genomics bloggers: Anthony Fejes, Dan Koboldt and David Dooling. If you're interested in the cutting edge of modern genomics you should definitely be reading these guys; all three are researchers working on hard problems in major genomics facilities while walking the blogging tightrope.
This week Dan advocated genetic testing of all cancers, Anthony had two thought-provoking posts on personalised medicine (here and here), and David ran a critical eye over pharma giant…
dgmacarthur | March 3, 2009I discussed the second-generation sequencing company Complete Genomics a couple of weeks ago (see here and here). These guys are unique in that they offer their technology only as a service, rather than the usual business model of selling platforms to genomics facilities, and a highly restricted service at that: Complete has stated fairly categorically that it will only be sequencing human genomes (no plants, algae, or even chimpanzees!).
Whether this business model will prove a commercial success remains to be seen, but the company seems to have impressed the genomics community with its…
dgmacarthur | February 9, 2009I wrote last week about the dramatic presentation here at AGBT by Clifford Reid, CEO of new DNA sequencing company Complete Genomics. Reid made grand promises - entire human genome sequencing for $5000 available this year, and the sequencing of a million complete human genomes within the next five years - and presented some impressive data on the sequencing of their first human genome, from an anonymous American male.
Reid's promises and data certainly caught the attention of the genomics community, and received decent media interest - the story was covered by New Scientist, Bio-IT World,…
dgmacarthur | February 9, 2009I'll be uploading a few of what I saw as the highlights from the AGBT meeting over the next week or so, as I go over my notes - you can also browse over Anthony Fejes' blog for live-blogging of many of the sessions. In no particular order, here are some of the tid-bits gleaned from Friday's sessions.
Kari Stefansson gave an overview of some of the latest results coming out from deCODE Genetics. He argued that combining multiple genetic variants for common diseases can now give clinically useful results - e.g. their work on thyroid cancer (published today in Nature Genetics) shows that the 3.7…
dgmacarthur | February 5, 2009Regular readers will know that I'm at the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology (AGBT) meeting this week, one of the most highly-awaited meetings on the genomics calendar.
There's a huge amount of fascinating data being presented (anyone interested in a blow-by-blow account should follow Anthony Fejes' live-blogging), but there's definitely an overarching theme: the evolving battle between the new-technology sequencing companies. This is a competition that most researchers in genomics are watching with great interest, because it promises to bring about very rapid advances in the speed,…
dgmacarthur | February 4, 2009The view from my back door in Cambridge on Monday:
The view from my hotel balcony in Marco Island this afternoon:
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dgmacarthur | February 1, 2009Complete Genomics is a DNA sequencing company that launched back in October, and has been creating a buzz in the genomics community ever since.
The company's business model is based around a novel technology for rapidly generating DNA sequence data; but rather than make its money by selling its platform to genomics facilities and biotech companies (as do its competitors, such as Illumina and ABI), Complete will be offering its technology only through its own purpose-built service facilities.
The buzz has focused on whether Complete's technology will be accurate and powerful enough to meet…