NEW YORK, June 6 (GenomeWeb News) - The Institute for Systems Biology will become the first early-access partner for Helicos Biosciences' single-molecule DNA sequencing technology, GenomeWeb News has learned.
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Under the terms of the agreement, disclosed by Helicos, ISB will have access to Helicos' True Single Molecule Sequencing technology and protocols for use in its research projects. The tSMS technology enables rapid sequencing of individual molecules of DNA and RNA, Helicos said.
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ISB will apply the technology in the area of cancer research, Leroy Hood, president and co-founder of the ISB, said in a statement.
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As GenomeWeb News reported last August, Hood said his institute was "talking about testing" one of Helicos' gene-sequencing prototypes.
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"We are ... doing some collaboration with ... Helicos, which is taking us further into downstream approaches to the analysis of single DNA molecules," Hood told GenomeWeb News during a news conference at the 12th European Congress on Biotechnology, held at the University of Copenhagen last August.
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"I think [new sequencing technologies] will have a profound impact on systems biology, because systems biology starts with complete genome sequences, and they're difficult to obtain now with methods used in the past," Hood said. "With some of the new methods coming out, [such as] parallel sequencing, we can see sequencing entire microbial genomes in a few hours."