Customers of Ion Torrent's Personal Genome Machine will have a number of new informatics options under several agreements announced this week.
DNAStar and Partek both announced that they have signed distribution agreements under which the Life Technologies subsidiary will offer their software packages through its online store.
Ion Torrent will offer DNAStar's SeqMan NGen sequence assembly and analysis software and Partek's Genomics Suite, which lets users analyze, compare, and integrate sequence data.
In a separate announcement, BioTeam said that it is partnering with Life Technologies to provide subscription-based services and support for the Ion Torrent Server and Torrent Suite software.
BioTeam will provide training, troubleshooting, and limited data-management strategy consulting to help users of the Ion Torrent PGM sequencer "maximize their investment and simplify IT management."
More specifically, the consulting firm will provide guidance on biological and data management strategies for the Torrent Server during an initial phone consultation and provide e-mail, web, and phone-based training for a number of tasks, including configuring the accessibility of web pages hosted on the Torrent Server; data management from the command line on the Torrent Server; integrating additional data archive sources such as USB-mounted or network-attached storage; and configuration, use, and maintenance of the Ubuntu operating system.
Pricing for a three-month subscription to the BioTeam's Torrent Server IT/Linux software support is $999 and a 12-month subscription costs $1,999. The support package will be made available on Ion Torrent's website in the coming weeks.
The Torrent Server is pre-configured with the Torrent Suite software and lets users convert raw signal into base calls in less than an hour and then delivers the data to user through a web interface. The Torrent Suite Software runs on the open source Linux-based Ubuntu operating system and leverages several other open source software packages.