SUNNYVALE, Calif.--Hyseq, a genomics company here, has signed its first pharmacogenomics agreement to work with the University of California, San Francisco, to study genes that may play important roles in the development of arteriosclerotic heart disease, stroke, diabetes, hypertension, and related metabolic disorders. In terms of the amount of sequence data generated, Hyseq claims the collaboration will be the largest ever in the cardiovascular field.
The university's role will be to collect DNA samples, along with clinical data, from 20,000 genetically diverse people. Then DNA samples will be sequenced and annotated and a sequence database created. Hyseq has the exclusive right to commercialize proprietary databases derived from the collaboration. "The quest for mutations that underlie arteriosclerosis is now made possible by the exciting breakthrough in gene-sequencing technology brought to the collaboration by Hyseq," remarked John Kane, a professor of medicine and biochemistry and biophysics at the university.
"We believe our patented Sequencing by Hybridization technology is the only platform capable of cost-effectively identifying all the relevant genes from so many samples, yielding a complete genetic picture," added Lewis Gruber, Hyseq's president and CEO.