The Advances in Genome Biology and Technology (AGBT) meeting begins this week at Marco Island. I’ll be there to present a poster on our somatic mutation detection pipeline, and also to learn about what’s to come in next-generation and next-next-generation sequencing.

Some of the companies are already ramping up. Last week Pac Bio announced the intial members of their partnership program to provide complete solutions for single molecule real-time sequencing. Microfluidics company Caliper Life Sciences formed a scientific advisory board for next-gen sequencing that included WashU’s own Vince Magrini.  Other companies – Illumina, Complete Genomics, and RainDance Technologies, for example – are hosting workshops or other events at AGBT.

AGBT Sessions Not To Miss

Day 1 of the meeting will be very strong, with opening remarks from Len Pennacchio (JGI),  Kelly Frazer (UCSD) on genomic enrichment, Mike Snyder (Stanford) on paired-ends for SVs/assembly, and Barbara Wold on ChIP-Seq. On Day 2, Stacey Gabriel of the Broad Institute will discuss applications of new sequencing technology to medical and cancer genetics. Carlos Bustamante of Stanford will present the complete genome sequencing and analysis of African-American and Mexican-American individuals. WashU’s David Wang will give a talk on metagenomic approaches to pathogen discovery.

Some friends of mine are giving talks later that evening. Jeff Reid (Baylor College of Medicine) has what looks to be a very interesting talk on miRNA precursor variants in schizophrenia. Daniel MacArthur, of Sanger and Genetic Future fame, will present “Loss-of-Function Mutations in Healthy Human Genomes,” likely based on his work with the 1,000 Genomes Project.

Cancer Genomics and Sequencing

I’m very excited about an entire session devoted to cancer genomics. Elliott Margulies (NHGRI) will discuss the sequencing and analysis of a melanoma genome. In what may be the first application of single-molecule sequencing to cancer, the sequencing of Ewing’s Sarcoma on a Heliscope instrument will be presented by Timothy Triche of Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. Two speakers from BC Cancer Agency will discuss rearrangements in follicular lymphoma and capture/transcriptome sequencing in lung cancer.

Whole Genome Sequencing

There are to be big-picture sequencing talks as well.  Genome center co-director Elaine Mardis will present “Single Molecule Sequencing to Detect and Characterize Somatic Mutations in Cancer Genomes.” Stan Nelson of UCLA will give a talk, presumably on his group’s recent publication – whole genome sequencing of a glioblastoma cell line on ABI SOLiD.

I’ll be there, and posting regular updates, as the latest and greatest in sequencing technologies unfolds at Marco Island.