NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Oxford Gene Technology has signed a licensing agreement with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute to access and use data from the Deciphering Developmental Disorders (DDD) study to design new arrays for its product portfolio.
The DDD study is a collaborative project between the UK's National Health Service, the Wellcome Trust, and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. Its goal is to perform genome-wide screening of over 12,000 individuals with developmental disorders to uncover the underlying genetic aberrations associated with these conditions.
Under the terms of the agreement, OGT will use the DDD study information along with data from the International Collaboration for Clinical Genomics consortium to develop its CytoSure Constitutional v3 arrays, a new range of genome-wide arrays that will be part of the company's CytoSure ISCA suite of products.
These arrays will be able to accurately identify copy number variations that are implicated in a range of genetic syndromes, according to the company, as well as amplifications and deletions and loss of heterozygosity regions. Customers will be able to analyze data from the arrays using OGT's CytoSure Interpret software.
"Access to such extensive information and systematically carried out research into developmental disorders will provide OGT with the ability to offer the most advanced array designs available for accurately identifying developmental disorders," James Clough, OGT's executive vice president commercial, said in a statement. "Working with the renowned Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the ICCG consortium will boost the evolution of our microarray and NGS products," he added.