Edico Genome Signs Contracts With NHGRI And NCI For Use Of DRAGEN For Cancer Research

SAN DIEGO, Aug. 2, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Edico Genome today announced it has signed contracts with the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) for the use of its DRAGEN^TM (Dynamic Read Analysis for Genomics) Bio-IT platform. Continuing their initiatives to advance cancer research, NHGRI and NCI purchased Edico Genome's DRAGEN Somatic pipeline and DRAGEN Genome pipeline, ensuring accuracy, reducing costs and accelerating secondary analysis of next-generation sequencing data.

The NHGRI, which signed a four-year contract with Edico Genome, was established to carry out the role of the National Institute of Health (NIH) in the International Human Genome Project (HGP). The institute is dedicated to the development of resources and technologies that accelerate genomic research and its application to human health.

The NCI purchased DRAGEN to provide operational and technical support for the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, which supports drug discovery and development for the NCI and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), respectively. Additionally, the lab spearheads the RAS Initiative, a national undertaking that seeks to understand the mechanism of the mutant protein and create therapeutic agents.

"As an industry, we must each continue to take an active role in forwarding this important work to put an end to cancer," said Pieter van Rooyen, Ph.D., chief executive officer of Edico Genome. "We designed DRAGEN to enable institutes such as the NHGRI and NCI to stay ahead of the big data bottleneck and expedite their timeframes for bringing vital research to light. With DRAGEN's industry leading speed and high accuracy, labs can focus their time and money on what matters most – bringing personalized medicine into the mainstream."

DRAGEN's Somatic Pipeline is comprised of Edico Genome's advanced Mapper/Aligner combined with its Tumor and Tumor/Normal Variant Caller algorithms. The Somatic pipeline is designed to detect smaller allele frequencies and distinguish between tumor frequencies and noise variations, enabling accurate analysis and variant detection.

Edico Genome's DRAGEN platform is built on a reconfigurable Field Programable Gate Array (FPGA), enabling massively accelerated secondary analysis of genomic data. By implementing algorithms as logic circuits which can be massively parallelized, DRAGEN is able to deliver best-in-class performance, reducing the time needed to sequence a whole genome at 30x coverage from 20 to 30 hours using traditional technologies, such as BWA-GATK, to approximately 20 minutes.

DRAGEN is available onsite, in the cloud via Amazon Web Services (AWS) or as a hybrid cloud solution. To date, DRAGEN customers have processed more than 17 petabytes of data using the platform.

About Edico Genome

The use of next-generation sequencing is growing at an unprecedented pace, creating a need for easy to implement infrastructure that enables rapid, accurate and cost-effective processing and storage of this big data. Edico Genome has created a patented end-to-end platform solution for analysis of next-generation sequencing data, DRAGEN™, which speeds whole genome data analysis from hours to minutes while maintaining high accuracy and reducing costs. Top clinicians and researchers are utilizing the platform to achieve faster diagnoses for critically ill newborns, cancer patients and expecting parents waiting on prenatal tests, and faster results for scientists and drug developers.

For more information, visit www.EdicoGenome.com or follow @EdicoGenome.

SOURCE Edico Genome

Related Links

http://www.edicogenome.com