NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – A new company named Fusion Genomics will offer next-generation sequencing-based assay development and bioinformatics services, Genome British Columbia said today.
The company currently is testing an NGS assay for use in diagnosing childhood sarcomas that is faster, more informative, and cheaper than current methods, Genome BC said. The ChildSeq-SCRT assay identifies genetic fusions at the transcript level found in Ewing's sarcoma, desmoplastic small round cell tumors, alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, and congenital fibrosarcoma, according to Fusion Genomics' website.
"In addition to childhood sarcomas, the company is actively pursuing collaborations with leading international institutions to devise new tests for various other cancers, infectious diseases, and other diseases of global importance," Fusion Genomics CSO Mohammad Qadir said in a statement.
Qadir and colleagues at the the Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre, BC Cancer Agency, in Vancouver led a research project to develop the ChildSeq-SCRT assay using Ion Torrent sequencing. The project was partially funded by Genome BC.
The ChildSeq assay is currently being evaluated at Texas Children's Hospital at Baylor College of Medicine, Genome BC said.
According to the Fusion Genomics website, the company also plans to offer custom NGS library construction services for RNAseq, assay development, companion diagnostics, whole-genome and exome sequencing, and custom pull-downs to customers in the medical, agriculture, and environmental sustainability sectors.
Fusion Genomics is supported by the VentureLabs accelerator program, a partnership of the University of Victoria, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia Institute of Technology, and the Emily Carr University of Art + Design, in collaboration with Compute Canada.