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Helicos' Shares Soar Day After Publication; CFO to Depart

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Shares of Helicos BioSciences closed up 40 percent on Tuesday, a day after the firm's technology was used to sequence the genome of one of its co-founders.

The paper, published in Nature Biotechnology, detailed how Stephen Quake, a Stanford University bioengineer and Helicos co-founder, sequenced his own genome using a single Heliscope machine and four data collection runs. He was able to achieve this feat in about four weeks at a cost of around $48,000 in sequencing reagents.

Investors reacted positively to the news, sending Helicos' shares as high as $1.70 during Tuesday's trading session, before closing at $1.01.

Helicos also disclosed Tuesday that its CFO, Stephen Hall, will be leaving the firm. Helicos said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that Hall will leave that role after the firm files its form 10-Q, which is expected to occur this Friday, Aug. 14.

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