Under the non-exclusive agreement, Germany's Merck will globally distribute RevoluGen's Fire Monkey/Fire Flower kit for the extraction of high molecular weight DNA.
Circulomics, Bionano, Sage Science, RevoluGen, and others have been developing methods for extracting DNA hundreds of kilobases and up to megabases in length.
The VGP released its first 15 high-quality reference genome assemblies today, which are part of the project's first phase to sequence 260 vertebrate genomes.
Working with Case Western Reserve University, the firm will sequence fecal samples from individuals diagnosed with autism and provide results for free to the research community.
The company has been working for several years under NIH grants totaling more than $7 million and is now preparing for its first formal product launch.
In a column at the Dallas Morning News, the Stanley Medical Research Institute's E. Fuller Torrey says the Human Genome Project hasn't delivered on promised results.
