The company has introduced additional capacity that will address the immediate demand for the Illumina sequencing services. This investment will provide increased throughput, reliability and process security to customers and will enable Source BioScience to set new standards in the quality and project turn around time for next generation sequencing services for the company.
Source BioScience has invested £0.7m in the Illumina Genome Analyzer platforms and ancillary equipment.
The company’s DNA sequencing solution is based on a combination of Sanger sequencing and next generation sequencing coupled with comprehensive bioinformatic support.
Source BioScience already operates customer-focused DNA sequencing laboratories in four major academic centres across the UK. This additional investment in the Nottingham facility will ensure that the company remains at the forefront of conventional and next generation DNA sequencing. The Illumina technology platform complements Source BioScience’s portfolio of genomic and diagnostic platforms, with applications in life science research as well as molecular pathology and clinical diagnostics.
Nick Ash, managing director of Source BioScience said: “We commissioned our first Illumina Genome Analyzer in 2008, becoming the first commercial service provider of this technology in the UK. We originally selected the Illumina platform because the data quality, reproducibility, flexibility and breadth of applications are, in our opinion, the best in the industry. This additional investment in the Genome Analyzer will establish Source BioScience as one of the leading commercial service providers of Illumina sequencing technology in Europe. Our enhanced service will provide increased throughput, reliability and process security to our customers and enable us to set new standards in the quality and turn around time for next generation sequencing services.”
“We are also delighted to see Illumina’s recent launch of the HiSeq 2000, the new high throughput sequencing platform, which is complementary with the Genome Analyzer. Source BioScience will be introducing this latest technology during the course of 2010 alongside our existing Genome Analyzer based service.”