NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) - Illumina said today it will develop a custom SNP microarray for the study of vascular diseases through a "multi-million dollar" collaboration with the Institute of Translational Medicine and Therapeutics at the University of Pennsylvania, the Broad Institute, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Candidate-gene Association Resource (CARe) Consortium.
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The CARe consortium, initiated by the NHLBI in 2006, aims to create a resource for analyzing the association of phenotypes linked to diseases that are within the Institute's scope.
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The IBC chip, named for ITMAT, Broad, and CARe, will be used to analyze more than 55,000 SNPs in genes that have been selected for cardiovascular-related phenotypes.
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Illumina said the collaborators will use the Illumina iSelect Custom Genotyping BeadChip to study the genetic diversity of pathways for around 2,100 genes that are linked to vascular conditions including blood pressure issues, myocardial infarction, heart failure, stroke, insulin resistance, metabolic disorders, dyslipidemia, and inflammation. The iSelect BeadChip enables scientists to train their research on specific SNPS related to pathways or disease.
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The company said that the study plans to analyze more than 120,000 samples from population studies and clinical trials for possible links to vascular disease.
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"With Illumina's assistance, we worked together to build a comprehensive, focused vascular disease panel," said Joel Hirschhorn, coordinator of the Broad Institute's Metabolism Initiative. He said that the microarray will allow the researchers to “quickly genotype thousands of patients across thousands of genes to identify genetic risk factors underlying vascular diseases and other complex genetic traits."
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Financial terms of the agreement were not released.