NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – The Australian Genome Research Facility said today that its next-generation sequencing lab has received ISO/IEC 17025:2005 accreditation.
The accreditation is for Illumina-based sequencing services from the National Association of Testing Authorities. NATA is one of four bodies comprising Australia's standards and conformance infrastructure and ensures that member facilities comply with standards and provide reliable testing, calibration, measurement, and inspection data to government, industry, and other markets.
The accreditation includes RNA and DNA library preparation, exome and custom capture enrichments, as well as HiSeq and MiSeq sequencing with data production and QC pipelines, AGRF said. It added that it is the "first biological testing-level accreditation of such a broad portfolio of NGS methods in Australia."
AGRF CEO Sue Forrest said that the accreditation marks the not-for-profit's next step in addressing the clinical genomics space. "Now AGRF can supply quality-accredited data from clinical samples to any accredited molecular diagnostics interpretation/reporting pipeline," enabling new partnering opportunities for the organization, she said in a statement. AGRF previously gained ISO/IEC 17025:2005 accreditation for Sanger sequencing, genotyping, gene expression, and identification services.