Illumina Signs Genotyping Services Agreement With the University of North Carolina --UNC-- At Chapel Hill
BusinessWire, Thursday, May 30, 2002 at 20:15
SAN DIEGO--(BW HealthWire)--May 30, 2002--
BeadArray(TM) Technology Will Help Correlate
SNP Genotypes with Non-Asthmatic Airways Diseases
Illumina, Inc. announced today that it has signed a commercial agreement with the UNC Pulmonary and Cystic Fibrosis Research Center to provide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping services on a sample collection provided by the Center. Under the terms of the agreement, Illumina will design functional assays for many of the SNP loci provided by the Research Center, and then use its BeadArray technology to genotype specified SNPs in the sample set. Further details about the agreement were not disclosed.
Researchers at the UNC Pulmonary and CF Research Center are trying to better understand key host defense and disease mechanisms that play a role in the development of non-asthmatic airways disease. Their efforts focus on human genetic models of disease, including cystic fibrosis (CF), primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD), and more unusual genetic disorders, such as pseudohypoaldosteronism (PHA).
Jay Flatley, Illumina President & CEO, noted "The Pulmonary, Cystic Fibrosis, and Critical Care Medicine group at UNC is a world renowned research team, performing clinical research studies that are bringing new understanding for developing as well as testing novel approaches for the treatment of lung disease. We're pleased that UNC will be leveraging the speed and throughput of our BeadArray technology to help further their research."
Organizations like UNC are expanding the scale of research devoted to identifying and studying genetic variations (SNPs), whose statistical frequency of occurrence between individuals and chromosomal locations may -- individually or collectively -- implicate specific disease genes and point the way to improved diagnostic and therapeutic development.
Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN; www.illumina.com) is developing next-generation tools that will permit large-scale analysis of genetic variation and function. The Company's proprietary BeadArray(TM) technology will provide the throughput, cost effectiveness and flexibility necessary to enable researchers in the life sciences and pharmaceutical industries to perform the billions of tests necessary to extract medically valuable information from advances in genomics. Illumina's technology will have applicability across a wide variety of industries beyond life sciences and pharmaceuticals, including agriculture, food, chemicals and petrochemicals. |
