BC Cancer Agency Buys RainDance’s ThunderStorm High-Throughput Sequencing System

The British Columbia Cancer Agency has purchased from RainDance Technologies a new ThunderStorm™ system for high-throughput targeted sequencing of cancer predisposition genes. The fully-automated solution enables researchers to process up to 96 samples per run.

BC Cancer Agency anticipates using the ThunderStorm system over the next two years in its quest to sequence a large number of samples from patients with hereditary predisposition to various cancers.

The agency’s development of a high-throughput clinical next-generation sequencing pipeline has won support from the Provincial Health Services Authority, BC Cancer Foundation, and Genome BC.

The ThunderStorm system simultaneously processes millions of individual single molecule PCR reactions by encapsulating each reaction in separate aqueous droplets, using RainDance’s microdroplet-based technology. The system supports a range of targeted sequencing applications including candidate gene lists, regions of association, signaling pathways, and deep sequencing of heterogeneous tumor samples.