This article was originally published March 18.
Oxford Nanopore has entered into an agreement with Accelrys to jointly develop software pipelines to analyze data from Oxford Nanopore's upcoming nanopore sequencing system.
The pipelines will include Accelrys' newly launched NGS Collection for Pipeline Pilot, which is compatible with all sequencing platforms.
Once the Oxford Nanopore sequencing system is commercially launched, Accelrys' software will be offered as the "preferred and supported solution for secondary and higher level data analysis," the companies said
While Oxford Nanopore has not yet said when it will launch its sequencing system, the company recently told In Sequence that its generic GridIon system, which it is developing for both DNA sequencing and protein analysis, is in "late stage development" and that it currently has about 15 systems in use internally, with another 20 in production (IS 3/15/2011).
Richard Carter, a senior scientist at Oxford Nanopore, told In Sequence that the Pipeline Pilot software is ideally suited to Oxford Nanopore's system because it is user-friendly and easily adaptable.
Carter noted that Oxford Nanopore is designing GridIon so that sequencing data can be analyzed in real time, which will allow users to tailor sequencing runs as they occur. For example, a researcher could in theory design an experiment that would sequence to a certain coverage at a certain read length, and then change the read length and coverage midway through the experiment, he said. Or, a researcher could program the sequencer to run until it reaches a specified coverage, for example 50-fold coverage of a specific gene, and then stop sequencing.
"Molecular analysis and particularly DNA sequencing is an accelerating field of life science research, but data management and analysis are becoming more challenging," Clive Brown, Oxford Nanopore's chief technology officer, said in a statement. "Pipeline Pilot is a highly adaptable software platform that helps solve a major contemporary problem for scientists."