Center will use the SOLiD 4hq system, and initial focus will be on cancer.

Life Technologies and the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, or DKFZ) are joining forces to create the National High-Throughput Sequencing Center. The aim is to establish the largest sequencing facility in Germany and the first national sequencing center in Europe dedicated to systems biology.

DKFZ has purchased 10 SOLiD™ 4hq systems for the center. It will initially sequence 1,000 whole human cancer genomes for Germany’s national contribution to the International Cancer Genome Consortium. The facility will be partially funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

“Our aim is to understand the dynamic complexity of cellular processes on both the DNA and RNA level and how slight perturbations of those pathways contribute to the development of diseases like cancer,” says Roland Eils, Ph.D., from DKFZ. “Therefore, it is of the utmost importance to be able to obtain quantitative precise measurements. We are confident that this collaboration with Life Technologies will help us generate the highest quality data possible using the SOLiD technology.”

Mark Stevenson, president and COO of Life Technologies, says, “This center will be the first facility that will systematically bring high-throughput sequencing technologically into systems biology applications on a large scale.”

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