SPT Labtech has announced an initiative with Thermo Fisher Scientific to co-market solutions that will enable variant detection in next-generation sequencing (NGS) studies at lower cost.
The companies say sensitive variant detection can now be achieved at lower library prep cost through miniaturisation with the SPT Labtech mosquito HV genomics and SPT Labtech dragonfly discovery systems.
By positioning Thermo Fisher’s NGS library preparation kits with the SPT Labtech mosquito HV genomics and SPT Labtech dragonfly discovery systems, reagent volumes requirements are reduced which can lower cost and increase the number of replicates for a library preparation.
The mosquito HV genomics and dragonfly discovery systems are designed to enable streamlined processing of samples at a reduced cost for applications such as disease research.
The initiative will initially support Invitrogen Collibri DNA library prep kits for Illumina Systems and Collibri library quantification kits for use in infectious disease studies, including SARS-CoV-2 research, copy number variation within cancer research, and other variant detection applications.
"Driving down the cost of NGS library construction without sacrificing quality of results represents a big step toward democratising science," said Joby Jenkins, Director of Product Strategy for SPT Labtech. "NGS technology evolves quickly and it can be time consuming for individual labs to automate the newest library prep kits. Our goal is to automate and miniaturise processes for NGS so scientists can expand the scope of their research programs and, ultimately, generate insights into human health."