The GS FLX+ System, developed by 454 Life Sciences, a Roche Company, features the unique combination of long reads, exceptional accuracy and high-throughput, making the system well suited for larger genome projects. "We're excited that BGI has implemented our GS FLX+ System in their Shenzhen facility," said Thomas Schinecker, President of 454 Life Sciences. "This again demonstrates the continued importance of the GS FLX+ platform and its utility as a powerful replacement for Sanger sequencing applications."
"We are very pleased to have Roche's GS FLX+ System," said, Meifang Tang, Director of NGS Department at BGI, "So far, the system has been operated successfully with a stable performance. We can achieve the read lengths up to 1000 bp reads in our laboratory. With the implement of this system, we hope assemblies will be greatly improved with fewer gaps, longer contigs and scaffolds in de novo genomics and transcriptomic research."
Roche and BGI have been working closely together over the years. They have made great collaborative efforts to develop methodologies and tools to assist scientists pursuing genomics research. Last November, Roche NimbleGen, Inc. and BGI developed a Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) region capture technology that will help advance research and development of new medicines for human diseases. "In the future, I hope we can cooperate even more closely, and make more breakthroughs in life science," added Tang.
About BGI
BGI was founded in Beijing, China, in 1999 with the mission to become a premier scientific partner for the global research community. The goal of BGI is to make leading-edge genomic science highly accessible, which it achieves through its investment in infrastructure, leveraging the best available technology, economies of scale, and expert bioinformatics resources. BGI, and its affiliates, BGI Americas, headquartered in Cambridge, MA, and BGI Europe, headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, have established partnerships and collaborations with leading academic and government research institutions as well as global biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, supporting a variety of disease, agricultural, environmental, and related applications.
BGI has a proven track record of excellence, delivering results with high efficiency and accuracy for innovative, high-profile research: research that has generated over 170 publications in top-tier journals such as Nature and Science. BGI's many accomplishments include: sequencing one percent of the human genome for the International Human Genome Project, contributing 10 percent to the International Human HapMap Project, carrying out research to combat SARS and German deadly E. coli, playing a key role in the Sino-British Chicken Genome Project, and completing the sequence of the rice genome, the silkworm genome, the first Asian diploid genome, the potato genome, and, more recently, have sequenced the human Gut Metagenome, and a significant proportion of the genomes for the 1000 Genomes Project. For more information about BGI, please visit www.genomics.cn