MedGenome Selects Applied Biosystems Axiom Genotyping Platform to Enable Large-scale Genetic Studies in South Asian Populations

FOSTER CITY, California, Nov. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- MedGenome, a global leader in personalized medicine, announced the development of a proprietary genotyping array to efficiently enable large-scale genetic studies focused on South Asian populations. The South Asian Research Genotyping Array by MedGenome ("SARGAM") will be optimized for capturing the unique variants found in South Asian genomes, leveraging MedGenome's proprietary database of 2.5 million variants that are unique to the South Asian population, and not available in any publicly available genetic database. SARGAM will be an ideal tool for accelerating the growth of MedGenome's rapidly expanding database of South Asian variants as well as to enable discovery research involving South Asian population cohorts. The Applied Biosystems^™ Axiom^™ platform has proven itself as a technology adaptable to large-scale individualized genotyping solutions and MedGenome is proud to select it as a platform.

MedGenome will utilize sequence data generated in its facility in Bengaluru and Thermo Fisher's capabilities in developing imputation aware array design and bioinformatics pipelines to identify unique content for SARGAM. SARGAM will help researchers better understand disease origins and improve human health by enabling the creation of new or improved diagnostics and medicines. It will also be a better tool for consumer genomics solutions like ancestry and pharmacogenomics for the South Asian population. SARGAM will be deployed in MedGenome's facility in India in conjunction with Thermo Fisher's new high throughput Axiom workflow that is targeted to fast-growing laboratories and offers scalability to millions of samples.

"After reviewing available global microarray platforms for population-scale studies, we selected Thermo Fisher Scientific' Axiom platform for our genotyping service for their best-in-class bioinformatics and array design," said Dr. Andy Peterson, Chief Scientific Officer for MedGenome. "The pairing of this South Asian array with MedGenome's high-throughput genomics sequencing and data analysis capabilities and their large network of collaborations with hospitals and physicians across India puts MedGenome in a unique position to drive discovery."

Most studies that research the interplay between disease and genes have focused on European populations. The reference genomes created through various sequencing studies – which form the foundation of genetic interpretation and insights provided to patients and consumers. - have also focused on such populations, making them less useful for association studies in Asian populations. 

Population optimized imputation aware Axiom genotyping arrays have been the solution of choice for leading population genotyping studies such as Taiwan Biobank and Precision Medicine, Tohoku MegaBiobank, Korea Biobank, FinnGen, UK Biobank, Million Veteran Program, and others, forming the backbone of research in polygenic risk scores to identify disease variants and improve health outcomes for individuals at highest risk for disease.

"The creation of this custom South Asian Array – which is only made possible by the rapid adoption of genetic diagnostics and research in India and South Asia in the past few years - marks an inflection point in our ability to leverage the genetic richness embedded in South Asia's population isolates for discovery. Our endeavor is to accelerate advancements in personalized medicine for complex human diseases," added Sam Santhosh, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of MedGenome.

For more information on MedGenome, visit www.medgenome.com. For more information on genotyping technologies from Thermo Fisher, visit: www.thermofisher.com/genotyping.

About MedGenome

MedGenome Inc. is a global leader in personalized medicine with unique genomic solutions in immuno-oncology, diabetes, ophthalmology and other rare diseases. It has a high-throughput NGS facility in Foster City, California, supporting research projects for bio-pharma and academic institutions in the US and Europe.

MedGenome also supports human genetics research by its leveraging our extensive infrastructure to access samples and data from patient records through collaborations with over 1500 hospitals in India, combined with capabilities to perform population level genomic sequencing of individuals. Through its extensive presence in the Indian sub-continent through MedGenome Labs, the company has access to data that provides insights into genetic diversity of Indian population for more than 4,500 population groups. Bioinformatics pipelines built to analyse data from large-scale sequencing efforts will facilitate identifying novel human genetic knockouts and medically relevant variants for drug discovery research.

MedGenome is also founding member of the GenomeAsia 100K, an initiative to sequence 100,000 Genomes in Asia, which will enable us to provide a unique resource of genetic research for the world. Headquartered in California, USA MedGenome has a workforce of more than 450 people across the globe with offices in India and Singapore.

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