Next Gen Diagnostics Announces Opening of a US Sequencing and Bioinformatics Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts

WEST PALM BEACH, FL / ACCESSWIRE / June 11, 2024 / Next Gen Diagnostics announces its first US laboratory will be opening in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to provide low-cost, fully integrated bacterial sequencing and bioinformatics to US customers and partners. Leveraging the advantages of its NGD100 high throughput microfluidic sequencing sample preparation instrument and automated pathogen bioinformatics systems, NGD offers sequencing combined with complete bioinformatics results at the lowest cost in the United States. Along with low sequencing cost, users get access to NGD's user interface, providing both an information-rich transmission detection application designed for infection control teams as well as powerful antibiotic resistance analysis and visualization tools to explore the interplay of cohort phylogeny, genomic resistance elements, and phenotype, a tool to advance understanding of the mechanisms of antibiotic resistance.

"NGD has assembled the technologies and capabilities to leverage the vanishing costs of sequencing per se by addressing the bottlenecks previously presented by sample preparation on the front-end and reliable bioinformatic analysis and result generation on the back-end," said Dr. Paul A. Rhodes, NGD's founder and CEO. "Now both researchers and infection control teams can have WGS results, with high throughput, low cost and fast turnaround, unlocking the transformative potential of the information available in bacterial whole genome sequence."

NGD's NGD100 microfluidic sample preparation instrument processes 48 bacterial WGS libraries in parallel with minimal hands-on time or human error, while using far less reagent than conventional methods, enabling the lowest cost sample preparation. This capability is complemented by NGD's best-in-class fully automated bioinformatics, which performs quality control and relatedness determination validated in a series of publications (e.g. 1,2) along with complete analysis of cohort phylogeny, resistance elements, and phenotype, delivered and visualized in a powerful user interface.

"NGD is joining others in utilizing the information present in bacterial whole genome sequence to transform both infection control and diagnostics. As one example, our recent study with Vanderbilt (3) demonstrated that WGS enabled far more effective detection of transmission in a neonatal intensive care ward than state-of-the-art standard practice, confirming that prospective WGS is a powerful tool to detect transmission and assist infection control teams in curtailing it. With evidence building (4) that the ever-declining cost of sequencing and analysis now enables ever-increasing net financial benefit to payers and hospitals in using sequencing to catch and reduce transmission, we want to enable broad evaluation and use of this capability in the US."

NGD will be exhibiting and demonstrating both the NGD100 system and bioinformatic user interface at ASM Microbe 2024 in Atlanta June 14-16.

¹ Raven et al, mSphere, 2022
² Blane et al, Microbial Genomics, 2024
³ Gaston et al, ASM Microbe Abstracts 2024
⁴ Price et al, Microbial Genomics, 2023

About Next Gen Diagnostics

NGD, founded by Dr. Paul A. Rhodes in 2017 along with Sanger Institute group leaders in Cambridge, has built and validated world-leading automation of pathogen bioinformatics, while the unique NGD100 microfluidic sample preparation instrument enables NGD to offer the lowest cost integrated sequencing and bioinformatics services available. NGD combines these capabilities to enable the WGS-based detection of transmission in health care settings and is working with leading collaborators in the US, Europe and Israel to be among the first to bring WGS-based regulated diagnostics to patient care. NGD is based in the US, with subsidiaries based in Cambridge, UK, and in Israel.

For press inquiries, please contact: press@nextgen-dx.com

Contact Information

Next Gen Diagnostics
press@nextgen-dx.com

SOURCE: Next Gen Diagnostics

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