Applied Biosystems’ Software Development Community helps scientists address next-generation sequencing bioinformatics challenges

Applied Biosystems today announced that its Software Development Community has established relationships resulting in two formal agreements intended to help scientists address next-generation sequencing bioinformatics challenges. Geospiza^® and GenomeQuest will develop bioinformatics tools that are expected to advance data analysis and management for life scientists utilising data generated by the SOLiD™ System, the life science industry’s highest throughput system for next-generation sequencing.

Geospiza, a leading provider of fully integrated data management infrastructure solutions for genetic analysis, has signed an agreement expanding its relationship with Applied Biosystems to include next-generation sequencing instrumentation. Applied Biosystems also formed an agreement with GenomeQuest, which provides an integrated sequence information platform allowing researchers to search and analyse genomic sequence data as a hosted service or as a hardware appliance.

The SOLiD System is capable of generating sequence data that exceeds 4 gigabases (GB), which is more than the approximately 3 billion bases of the human genome. The solutions offered by Geospiza and GenomeQuest are expected to help address managing this vast amount of genomic data by providing complementary services, including the IT infrastructure to manage the data, as well as the ability to process the data and align it to a reference sequence.

Applied Biosystems expects that its relationships with Geospiza and GenomeQuest will help drive innovation and speed the development of new tools that will enable researchers to find answers faster and more cost-effectively, thereby helping scientists to realise the full potential of next-generation genomic analysis. Applied Biosystems has shared file formats, sample data sets and analysis pipeline information with Geospiza and GenomeQuest so that they may configure their products, services and capabilities to address customer challenges associated with generating, analysing and managing research data in key applications for the SOLiD System.