Nonexclusive agreement includes complementary Illumina, Agilent systems.

Illumina and Agilent Technologies have agreed to jointly market complementary technologies for scientists performing targeted resequencing research.

Agilent’s SureSelect Target Enrichment System allows researchers to “wash away” unwanted parts of genomes to target specific areas of genomic interest, and the companies say that when it is combined with Illumina’s high-output Genome Analyzer, enables scalable resequencing on areas of interest.

“The Agilent SureSelect Target Enrichment System requires only standard equipment already in the next-generation sequencing workflow,” says Nick Roelofs, Ph.D., Agilent vp and general manager, life science solutions unit. “The SureSelect platform draws upon Agilent’s distinctive ability to accurately and reliably custom-manufacture oligos greater than 100 base pairs, resulting in highly specific capture of genome variance.”

“When combined with Illumina’s Genome Analyzer, researchers can design their own experiments and take advantage of Illumina’s long reads to achieve timely, reproducible results while reducing cost and increasing robustness,” adds Dr. Roelofs.

The new research protocol, developed in part at MIT, allows scientists to research multiple areas in a search for rare mutations, such as those causing cancer, as well as research of the entire genome.

“Targeting based on hybrid selection may be potentially useful for a variety of applications where traditional single-plex PCR is either too costly or too specific,” says Chad Nusbaum, genome sequencing and analysis codirector at MIT’s Broad Institute.ADNFCR-2184-ID-19128668-ADNFCR

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