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In Brief This Week: Sequenom; Almac Diagnostics; NHGRI, Coraid; CLC Bio, JCVI

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Sequenom said this week that University of Michigan researchers conducted a study that showed that the firm's MassArray technology can identify human papillomavirus infections in women who previously tested negative with the Qiagen Hybrid Capture 2 test.

According to the firm, its PCR-MS method detected the presence of high-risk HPV in 46.7 percent of women who had tested negative by Hybrid Capture 2. The study is scheduled to appear in the September 2009 edition of the Journal of Virological Methods.

Sequenom said that it would seek US and European marketing approvals for its AttoSense HPV assay, which detects 15 HPV types associated with cervical cancer, "as soon as practical."


Almac Diagnostics has opened its new headquarters in Craigavon, Northern Ireland, this week, the firm's parent company, Almac Group said. The diagnostics firm also has facilities in Durham, NC.


The National Human Genome Research Institute has implemented Coraid's EtherDrive SAN as the storage environment for its genomics research, San Clemente, Calif.-based Coraid said this week.


CLC Bio said this week that the J. Craig Venter Institute is using accelerated versions of the Hmmpfam and Hmmsearch algorithms in its bioinformatics pipeline for functional annotation of proteins identified in metagenomics data. CLC said that it has accelerated the HMMER package's core parts with its SIMD technology, enabling an increase in sequencing analysis capacity.

The Scan

International Team Proposes Checklist for Returning Genomic Research Results

Researchers in the European Journal of Human Genetics present a checklist to guide the return of genomic research results to study participants.

Study Presents New Insights Into How Cancer Cells Overcome Telomere Shortening

Researchers report in Nucleic Acids Research that ATRX-deficient cancer cells have increased activity of the alternative lengthening of telomeres pathway.

Researchers Link Telomere Length With Alzheimer's Disease

Within UK Biobank participants, longer leukocyte telomere length is associated with a reduced risk of dementia, according to a new study in PLOS One.

Nucleotide Base Detected on Near-Earth Asteroid

Among other intriguing compounds, researchers find the nucleotide uracil, a component of RNA sequences, in samples collected from the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu, as they report in Nature Communications.