German sequencing service provider GATC Biotech said today that it has agreed to purchase a Pacific Biosciences RS platform, making it the first European service provider for PacBio. The machine is scheduled to be installed in early 2011.
GATC Biotech plans to use the system for "resolving structural variations, for example in human cancer genomes, and for the detection and confirmation of rare SNPs."
In addition, the company said that it is also interested in a "future application" for the PacBio RS that will enable direct sequencing of methylated bases and "make the system attractive for regulatory studies, for example for the pharmaceutical or diagnostics industry."
The PacBio RS will be GATC's fifth sequencing technology. It currently has nine ABI 3730 xl sequencers, two 454 GS FLX, three Illumina Genome Analyzers, and two HiSeq 2000 instruments, which were installed earlier this year (IS 7/13/2010).