This online seminar focused on the design of a large cohort study for assessing breast cancer risk and how using an innovative digital sequencing approach is able to solve the previously unmet challenges of this type of NGS study design.

Our speaker, Dr. Fergus J. Couch of the Mayo Clinic, presented on the design of this NCI-funded project, which comprises the sequencing of 60,000 samples to assess the risk of breast cancer through association with targeted genes.

The design and size of the study requires an accurate, robust, and high-throughput sequencing method. The investigators are using a digital DNA sequencing approach from Qiagen that incorporates molecular barcodes to tag and remove PCR duplicates and increase NGS assay sensitivity. The approach also uses proprietary chemistry that enables uniform sequencing to efficiently utilize sequencing power and deliver optimized results.

Viewers of this webinar will be able to ask Dr. Couch questions about the study design and methodology during a live Q&A session.

Information on Qiagen's universal NGS solutions is available here and Qiagen's GeneReader NGS system is available here.