Long-read sequencing technology generate a heated discussion in The Jackson Laboratory

As a large number of highly impact articles which based on the long-read sequencing technology were published, the world’s top medical genomics Laboratory The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine held a long-read sequencing workshop on April 23 to 25, 2018. Hundreds of experts and scholars in the field of biology, bioinformatics, medical genetics from across the globe had gathered in Farmington CT to discuss about the technology and molecular biology driving each sequencing platform, including those from Pacific Biosciences, 10X Genomics, and Oxford Nanopore. Prof. Kai Wang, chief scientist of NextOmics Bioscience (China, Wuhan), gave an excellent presentation about the detection of structural variations (SVs) in human genome via different long-read sequencing platforms and win a high praise.

This academic symposium mainly focused on the latest technologies such as PacBio, Oxford Nanopore, 10X Genomics, Bionano and Hi-C etc. The chief scientist of NextOmics Bioscience (China, Wuhan), Professor Kai Wang, was invited to give a talk on the topic “Long-Read Sequencing Meets the Human Genomics”. He clarified the characteristics and advantages of applying Nanopore, PacBio and Bionano technologies to detect human genome SVs. Then he introduced a new algorithm which broke through the present technical bottlenecks of microsatellite sequences repeat unit identification based on PacBio Sequencing, RepeatHMM, developed by his team. In addition, he also declared a detection technology of facial shoulder brachial muscular dystrophy (FSHD) based on Bionano SaphyrTM platform perfectly solves the existing problems of FSHD diagnosis. It is worth mentioning that Prof. Wang’s idea of focusing on long-read sequencing techniques to study SVs coincides with Michael Schatz, a renowned scientist in computer science and biology at Johns Hopkins university. And Dr. Yijun Ruan, the director of genomic science department belongs to The Jackson Laboratory, talk about the Hi-C technology, he focused on the applications of Hi-C in analysis of genomic SVs, interactions in transcriptome, and the modification of genome etc. He provided a new insight about genome research by the perspective of three-dimensional level. Beyond that, many experts and scholars had introduced new bioinformatics algorithms to participants, such as associate professor Winston Timp, the department of biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins university, showed their latest tools based on Nanopore for characterizing the genome and epigenome.

The Jackson Laboratory

The Jackson Laboratory is an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institution dedicated to the discovery of precise genomic solutions for human disease.

For more details: https://www.jax.org/

Nextomics Biosciences

Nextomics Biosciences, founded in 2011 in Biolake, Wuhan, is a worldwide third generation sequencing (TGS) leader, which has branches in Beijing Life Science Park and Philadelphia, the US. It owns the largest TGS center in China & the US, and 8Tb TGS data could be yielded monthly and more than 20 TGS sequencers are now in operation.

As the first provider of third-generation sequencing service in China, Nextomics has successfully developed bioinformatics analysis pipelines based on PacBio SMRT sequencing technology since 2013 and launched Sequel genomic center since 2016. Significantly, Nextomics has become the first in China and one of the first in the world certified Nanopore service providers since 2017. Nanopore sequencing can provide extremely long read lengths to make genome assembly more accurate and simpler through MinION, GridION, and PromethION, and especially, it can offer the real-time direct RNA sequence. Nextomics has depth of TGS experience and has completed over 4,00 hundreds of genome projects ranging from de novo genome assembly to full-length transcriptome analysis and metagenomics, which is always focusing on meeting the demands of customers and updating the technologies of TGS.

NextOmics has established a comprehensive and cutting-edge omics research center by using a variety of technologies, such as the Oxford Nanopore, optical mapping (BioNano), PacBio sequencing and High-throughput chromosome conformation capture (Hi-C). In 2018, NextOmics will also leverage Nanopore Technology in areas such as Ultra Long Reads, direct RNA sequencing and DNA/RNA modifications. We sincerely welcome worldwide customers and collaborators to work with NextOmics and enjoy the unique advantages of long read sequencing. Let’s embrace the long-read sequencing era!