Fluidigm Europe has announced that the Cancer Research UK Centre for Genetic Epidemiology has bought its EP1 system to conduct cancer research and disease association studies.
The Fluidigm EP1 system combines the efficiencies of integrated fluidic circuit (IFC)-based high-throughput genotyping in a desktop-sized configuration.
The Centre for Genetic Epidemiology is using high-throughput SNP genotyping to identify and verify genetic variants that can underlie susceptibility to various cancers.
Cancers that are being investigated include breast, ovarian, colorectal, prostate, and melanoma.
The laboratory uses an automated process with sample tracking and quality control.
The centre has successfully completed its validation experiments on the EP1 system using real samples and will now move forward using the system in its large genotyping studies.
Strangeways Research Laboratory is known for its exploration surrounding identification and prevention of common diseases with a genetic component.
It uses a range of disciplines relevant to a given field, and brings together researchers in epidemiology, molecular genetics, bioinformatics, statistics and public health.
Fluidigm's EP1 system, combined with the company's IFCs called dynamic arrays, provide superior data quality, a fast and easy workflow, and cost savings for high-throughput SNP genotyping studies.
The EP1 system delivers high-quality SNP genotyping results, with better than 99 per cent call rates and 99.75 per cent or greater accuracy.
This is achieved with an easy-to-use, high-throughput workflow that can provide up to 9,216 data points per IFC with results in four hours.
The EP1 system, which includes the IFC controller, standalone thermal cycler and end-point reader, provides more than 27,000 genotypes a day.
By adding more IFC controllers and thermal cyclers to be used in conjunction with a single EP1 Reader, laboratories can generate more than 200,000 genotypes in a day using Taqman chemistries.
