NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Genomic services contract research organization Genewiz and Hy Laboratories today announced a partnership to develop diagnostic panels to characterize the gut microbiome in patients with obesity and diabetes.
The multiyear project seeks to stratify patients with diabetes and obesity for bariatric surgery or alternative treatments. Obesity and diabetes are closely related to the function and population of the gut microbiome, the firms said in a statement.
"With access to Hy Labs' patient network, we will target the most relevant microbiota in the gut system via stool sample collection and medical metadata to detect and determine the relative abundance of bacterial and archaeal species," Shihong Li, Genewiz manager of R&D, said in a statement. "We will apply Genewiz's proprietary next-generation sequencing methodologies on both the Illumina MiSeq and Thermo Fisher Scientific's Ion PGM to capture increased sequence diversity with a very high level of sensitivity."
The tests will be used in a clinical study conducted in the US and at Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot, Israel.
The collaboration is funded with a grant from the Israel-US Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation, the firms said in a statement. The amount of the grant was not disclosed.