Applied Bio’s New Grant Program Will Offer Winners Access to the SOLiD 3 System

Applied Biosystems has initiated the $10K Genome Grant Program covering genomic, epigenomic, or transcriptome studies. The winners get to use the company’s latest sequencing technology, the SOLiD 3 System. Grant submissions are due by December 31, and results will be announced in February 2009.

The first-place winner will be awarded up to 60 gigabases or 750 million tags of sequencing data. The individual may represent an academic institution or laboratory. Applied Biosystems will perform all sequencing, primary data generation, and analysis using the SOLiD 3 System.

Additionally, 10 second-place winners will be selected, and each will receive one, two-slide run. It will be conducted on a SOLiD 3 platform by either Applied Biosystems or a member of the SOLiD System service provider program.

The $10K Genome Grant Program as well as the new SOLiD 3 System is being introduced through an Applied Biosystems SOLiD Roadshow. It began last week and will travel through 19 cities in the U.S. and Europe. The firm reported earlier this month that the SOLiD 3 System can provide a path to a $10,000 genome. It also extends this ultrahigh-throughput sequencing platform into other applications such as RNA and epigenetic analysis.

The following are on the review panel for the grant program: Sean Grimmond, Ph.D., group leader in the genomics and computational group at the Institute of Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland, Yoshihide Hayashizaki M.D., Ph.D, director of the Omics Science Center at the Institute for Physical and Chemical Research, John McPherson, Ph.D., cancer genomics director at the Ontario Institute of Cancer Research, Stanley F. Nelson, M.D., professor and vice-chair of human genetics and professor of psychiatry within the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles, Stefan Schreiber, M.D., professor of medicine and gastroenterology at the Christian-Albrechts University in Kiel, Chung-I Wu, Ph.D., professor in the department of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago and the director of Beijing Institute of Genomics, Francisco de la Vega, Ph.D., distinguished scientific fellow and vp of SOLiD applications and bioinformatics, Kevin McKernan, senior director of SOLiD scientific operations, Michael Rhodes, Ph.D., $10K Genome Grant Program chairman and senior manager of SOLiD product applications, Bob Setterquist, Ph.D., director, scientific operations transcriptome analysis at the company.