By Julia Karow
Eurofins MWG Operon has launched sequencing services on Pacific Biosciences' PacBio RS, the company said last week.
According to Georg Gradl, global sales manager for next-generation sequencing at Eurofins, the company is currently providing services through a collaboration with an undisclosed early-access user of the PacBio platform who has spare capacity.
Eurofins is waiting to receive its own PacBio RS instrument but does not know yet when it will arrive, Gradl said.
Eurofins will prepare the sequencing libraries prior to shipping them to its partner and will conduct bioinformatic analyses of the sequence data. Gradl told In Sequence by e-mail that the firm has "carefully tested" the technology in a number of projects, including bacterial, fungi, and higher plant genomes.
He said the company, which has offices in Europe, the US, and Asia, hopes "to contribute to improving the technology by combining it with our broad knowledge and portfolio for de novo sequencing."
Eurofins MWG Operon currently offers sequencing services on the 454 GS FLX and GS Junior, Illumina HiSeq 2000, and Life Tech ABI 3730xl, and expects to receive the GS FLX+ upgrade this summer.
Have topics you'd like to see covered in In Sequence? Contact the editor at jkarow [at] genomeweb [.] com.