Roche has globally launched the GS Junior, a benchtop sequencing platform developed by its 454 Life Sciences unit.
The system, which is the size of a typical desktop laser printer, is able to sequence more than 35 megabases of DNA in a 10-hour run, with average read lengths of about 400 base pairs. It includes a suite of data analysis software for scientists with little experience in DNA sequencing and bioinformatics, with tools for de novo genome and transcriptome assembly and mapping, as well as amplicon variant analysis for the identification of rare variants in targeted sequencing studies.
Roche first disclosed details about the new instrument in December (IS 12/1/2009).