The Institut de cancerologie Gustave Roussy (IGR) Genomic Center has renewed its status as an Agilent certified service provider and reference training centre for a panel of microarray technologies.
The IGR Genomic Center first achieved Agilent certified service provider status for gene expression microarrays in 2005.
IGR has expanded the panel of services to CGH and MiRNA and has become the first centre in Europe to achieve this status for both DNA and RNA technologies.
The centre is also authorised to perform training for the same technologies that meets Agilent certification standards.
The IGR Genomic Center achieved this status after passing a rigorous series of assessments.
The assessments included proficiency in analysing Agilent's 60-mer oligo microarrays using the complete Agilent workflow - from sample quality control using Agilent's 2100 Bioanalyzer, to sample labelling, hybridisation, array scanning, feature extraction and data analysis.
'The complexity of research in life sciences, and in particular in oncology, needs a comprehensive investigation of the genome,' said Dr Vladimir Lazar, head of the IGR Genomic Center and the Integrated Biology programme.
'Our goal is to provide an integrated, cutting-edge technology platform that enables us to investigate and to correlate CGH, CNV, gene expression and MicroRNA expression.' According to Prof Jean-Charles Soria, head of the Early Therapeutics Innovations Service (SITEP), acquiring an integrated genomic vision is extremely important for IGR research programs.
Such certified technology reinforcement enables IGR to conduct innovative research.
Frederic Laget, Agilent senior director, life sciences, said that this collaboration is unique due to the combination of the service provider status with the reference training centre, and that many Agilent customers across Europe, the Middle East and Africa have been trained at the IGR Genomic Center.
