Intelligent Bio-Systems announced a new sequencing-by-synthesis instrument for targeted sequencing, called the Mini-20, at the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities annual meeting, held in Orlando, Fla., in March.
The Mini-20 is aimed at core and clinical labs, IBS founder and CEO Steven Gordon said, as it allows users to add samples while runs are in process. This, he added, could help users who need to run multiple samples, but do not want to wait for a full complement before beginning analysis.
The Mini-20 has a carousel-like organization, Gordon said. Inside, it houses 20 flow cells that shift to different stations for reagent delivery as well as for washing and imaging. Once the in-progress runs reach a convenient stopping point in their cycles, users can add more samples. Each flow cell is barcoded, he added, and thus its progress in the run is monitored.
The machine is priced at $120,000, and it will be available to early-access users in the second quarter of 2012. The cost to run a 10 micro-liter flow cell is estimated to be less than $150, and a single flow cell can generate 20 million reads. If all flow cells in the machine are in use, it can produce 400 million reads and 80 gigabases, Gordon said. Ten samples can be sequenced in a day.
IBS also has a Max-Seq instrument for full-genome sequencing that the company announced last year that can generate 100 gigabases of data per run.