This article has been updated and clarified to include claims from University College Dublin, which told GenomeWeb Daily News this week that it has a sequencing lab that already is using an Illumina sequencer.

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Trinity College Dublin's Institute of Molecular Medicine has opened a Genome Sequencing Laboratory, the university recently announced.

The new lab, which opened within the past couple of weeks, will enable research into psychiatric disorders, cancers, infectious diseases, and immune system disorders being conducted at the Institute of Molecular Medicine. Funding for the sequencing lab was provided by Science Foundation Ireland through a grant of €557,724 ($773,680).

The university had claimed that the new lab was Ireland's first genome sequencing lab and also housed Ireland's first next-generation sequencing platform — an Illumina Genome Analyzer II. However, University College Dublin has refuted that claim, telling GenomeWeb Daily News via e-mail that it was already using an Illumina GA II in its own sequencing lab.

"This new DNA sequencing technology will greatly accelerate the search for risk genes for schizophrenia by enabling Trinity's Neuropsychiatric Genetics Research Group to sequence many genes in many patient samples to identify the subtle changes to the DNA code that results in a gene not functioning properly and thus contributing to the development of the illness," said Professor Michael Gill, head of the Neuropsychiatric Genetic Research Group in Trinity's School of Medicine.

The original article appeared June 22 on GWDN.