Broad Institute's Genome Sequencing Platform implements certified power protection to protect investment in leading-edge Solexa genome sequencing instrumentation, valued at approximately $1.5 million
Franek Technologies, a company which makes in certified category III-3 laboratory battery backup power protection systems (LPS/UPS), has been selected to protect the initial placement of three Solexa 1G genome analysers, valued at approximately $1.5million, at the Broad Institute's Genome Sequencing Platform, a flagship of the international Human Genome Project.
The Broad Institute will utilise the Solexa analysers to deepen its understanding of the human genome by evolutionary comparison, decode the genomes of pathogens, and discover mutations in cancers.
With the certified power protection provided by Franek Technologies, the Institute is not only protecting its significant monetary investment in instrumentation and consumables, but also is protecting valuable research time and the integrity of its reportable results against the inevitable power fluctuations prominent in scientific laboratories today.
As part of Solexa's early access programme, Franek Technologies custom-engineered, qualified, and certified a power protection solution for the Genome Sequencing Platform to ensure that when power glitches do occur, the genome analysers will maintain optimal performance and produce reliable results 24/7.
As a world leader in large-scale genome sequencing and analysis, the Broad Institute relies on extremely complex and sensitive instrumentation with extensive automation.
A single power glitch could cause significant instrument damage requiring costly recalibration and retesting, as well as lost productive time.
Since some tests can to take up to 36 hours to complete, it is critical that the instruments are protected against any outages, even those as short as 30 milliseconds, as mid-test outages can result in the loss of irreplaceable samples and data.
At the recommendation of scientists with extensive industry experience, the Genome Sequencing Platform sought the instrumentation-grade power protection offered by Franek Technologies.
The Institute's investment in certified power protection was well-under 5% of the initial acquisition cost of the Solexa systems and much less than 1% of the system's overall annual operational costs.
Factoring in the damage that can be caused by a single power glitch, the installation of a Franek Technologies certified power protection solution was an essential investment in its risk management plan.
This installation at the Institute's Genome Sequencing Platform adds to the more than 20 other Franek Technologies power protection solutions already in place at MIT, Harvard University, and their affiliated hospitals and partners.
"We are pleased that we were selected by Solexa and the Broad Institute to conduct early product certification and qualification tests on the new 1G genomic analyser," explains Ray Hecker, VP of Franek Technologies.
"Our collaboration with Solexa and the Broad Institute represents an opportunity for industry leaders to enable cutting-edge technology to advance our knowledge base, and to do so while realising life cycle cost reductions in reportable results with improved instrumentation reliability".
Franek Technologies specialises in providing laboratory productivity/protection systems (LPS/UPS) for analytical, diagnostics, forensic, life-science, pharmaceutical and biotechnology instrumentation systems applications.
Its certified uninterruptible battery backup power sources for laboratory and instrumentation applications protect over $3 billion in laboratory assets worldwide.
The company's power engineers have developed LPS/UPS products for over 1,500 instrumentation applications, from more than 80 manufacturers, to meet US government power requirements.
