Applied Biosystems announces next-generation sequencing development scheme

Applied Biosystems has announced the launch of an initiative in the development and possible commercialisation of bioinformatics applications for next-generation DNA sequencing platforms.

Due to the initiative, the company is expanding its software development community to incorporate data file formats, sets and conversion tools for its SOLiD sequencing platform.

General manager for Applied Biosystems’ next-generation sequencing business unit Kimberlee S Caple commented: "Application-specific software is crucial in building the bridge from the quality data generated by the SOLiD System to new insights that will advance biomedical research by broadening the use of genomic information."

Applied Biosystems is now the first producer of next-generation instrument systems to make such tools available to the bioinformatics community. In doing so the company claims to be addressing the challenges faced in managing and analysing research data generated by this technology

The firm recently received an award in industrial design for its StepOne Real-time PCR system.