GenoLogics said this week that the University of Washington's Genome Sciences Genomics Resource Center will use its Geneus lab information and data-management system for a planned expansion in its next-generation sequencing capability.
The GS-GRC plans to scale up to approximately eighteen Illumina Genome Analyzers over the next few months and decided that it needed a commercial system to handle the volume of data it would be generating from these instruments, GenoLogics said.
Mike Sanders, product manager for GenoLogics, told BioInform this week at the Association for Biomolecular Resource Facilities conference in Sacramento, Calif., that the company has been working closely with technicians, investigators, and bioinformaticians at the GS-GRC to ensure a rapid implementation of the system.
The company has provided application programming interfaces so that the GS-GRC team can add its own applications to the platform, he said.
Sanders said that Geneus is a flexible system that will be able to scale to the center's needs as it acquires more sequencers and as its research requirements evolve.
"The technology is moving so quickly in this field that there is no time for groups to articulate requirements," he said. For example, he noted that the GS-GRC group is in the process of moving from a tube-based exon capture protocol to a plate-based system, which means that the LIMS must be able to adapt quickly to such changes as they occur.
Geneus was installed in about a day and was fully implemented at the center within two months of the installation date, he said.
Sanders said that GenoLogics sees a growth opportunity for Geneus in next-generation sequencing, particularly for groups that are moving from one sequencer to multiple machines. "People are struggling with three and four instruments," he said, "and with the launch of [Illumina's] HiSeq [2000], things are only going to get worse."
The HiSeq 2000, launched earlier this year, generates up to 200 gigabases of data per run. By comparison, Illumina's GAIIx currently delivers up to 50 gigabases per run.
Sanders said that many labs "start small" when it comes to data-management, and rely at first on Excel spreadsheets and then look into developing in-house LIMS, "but they get in real trouble when they scale."