NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – CLC Bio said today that it will partner with Ion Torrent to ensure that its software can receive data directly from Ion Torrent's sequencing system.
The partnership will enable data to flow from the Ion Personal Genome Machine (PGM) into CLC Bio's solutions, including the Genomics Workbench and the Genomics Server.
The companies also will partner in a program that will award a PGM sequencer and a lifetime license for the Genomics Workbench to two grant winners.
Ion Torrent's PGM uses massively parallel semiconductor sequencing that detects nucleotide additions — without using light, optics, or lasers — by detecting the release of hydrogen ions after nucleotide incorporation. CLC said that the sequencer can complete a run in around one hour, and that it offers semiconductor scalability.
The sequencing start-up, led by former 454 Life Sciences' Founder and now Ion Torrent CEO Jonathan Rothberg, unveiled its PGM sequencer in early March.
The company said at the time that the PGM sequencer will cost less than $50,000 and will generate hundreds of millions of bases and millions of highly accurate reads per run, each several hundred bases in length, according to Genome Web Daily News sister publication In Sequence.