Life Tech Plans to Launch SOLiD 4 in Early 2010

Life Technologies plans to release a new version of its Applied Biosystems SOLiD sequencing platform — tentatively called SOLiD 4 — early next year, In Sequence has learned.

A Life Tech spokesperson told In Sequence last week that the company is not yet disclosing the features of SOLiD 4, "other than to say that we will continue to pursue our advantages in providing the most accurate data via our two-base encoding, and the most throughput via improved bead density and other imaging techniques."

The planned SOLiD update was reported in a research note by Leerink Swann analyst Isaac Ro last week. In his note, he mentioned that in a meeting, Life Tech "management also stated that a new version of [the SOLiD] platform is due to be released in February 2010 and should offer further cost reductions."

Life Technologies Cuts Staff at Foster City

Life Technologies has cut 75 positions at Applied Biosystems' facilities in Foster City, Calif., and will cut a further 40 employees in the summer, according to a notice posted on the website of California's Employment Development Department.

The first group of cuts occurred in January, according to the website. Such job cuts are not unexpected in the wake of the roughly $5 billion merger of Invitrogen and ABI to form Life Technologies. Invitrogen said in October that it expects $80 million in synergies, mostly from cost savings, in the first year after closing the deal.

"The company stated that part of those synergies would be achieved through corporate overhead reductions, which unfortunately does include the elimination of redundant positions between the two legacy companies," the firm said in a statement to In Sequence's sister publication, GenomeWeb Daily News, last week. "Life Technologies cannot confirm the number or timing of those workforce reductions," it added.

The firm has already closed ABI's corporate offices in Norwalk, Conn., as part of efforts to eliminate redundant operations.

Life Technologies employs around 9,500 people worldwide.

JCVI Starts New Sorcerer II Expedition; Plans to Test Life Tech's Single-Molecule Sequencer

The J. Craig Venter Institute said last week that it is launching a new Sorcerer II Expedition, called the J. Robert Beyster and Life Technologies 2009-2010 Research Voyage.

On the two-year voyage, a team of scientists led by Craig Venter will sample microbial diversity in the Baltic, Mediterranean, and Black Seas — areas of interest because they are isolated from the major oceans and expected to contain unique microbial communities.

Sorcerer II left the port of San Diego last week. From there it will travel south along the Mexican coast, through the Panama Canal, to Florida, Bermuda, and the Azores before landing at Plymouth, UK. From there, the ship will head to Stockholm, Sweden. Baltic Sea sampling is scheduled for this summer, while Mediterranean and Black Sea samples are to be collected in 2010.

During the sampling phases of the journey, researchers collect between 200 and 400 liters of water every 200 miles or so. This water is filtered to catch microorganisms of various sizes, which are then frozen and shipped to JCVI laboratories in Maryland and California for genomic DNA analysis.

Some of the samples will be analyzed using "new innovative technologies, such as single-molecule DNA sequencing" from Life Technologies, Greg Lucier, the company's chairman and CEO, said in a statement (see article in this issue).

Venter noted in the same statement that Sorcerer II expeditions so far have turned up roughly 20 million new genes and thousands of previously unidentified protein families.

"[W]e are excited to now sample in new environments on this journey to the Baltic, Black, and Mediterranean [seas]," Venter said. "We are confident that this voyage will yield important insights into the microbial universe there and will add to the growing catalogue of microbes and genes my team has been compiling through the Sorcerer II Expedition."

The trip is funded by the Beyster Family Foundation Fund of the San Diego Foundation along with matching grants from Life Technologies and anonymous donors. The anticipated cost of the voyage was not disclosed.