The titans of the next-generation sequencing world converge on Marco Island, Florida for the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology meeting. This may prove to be a particularly exciting year at AGBT, with current market-share leader Illumina facing aggression from all sides. A hostile takeover bid by Roche. A new threat from Life’s acquisition of IonTorrent. And a host of next-next-generation sequencing technologies all racing to reach the market this year.
Session Highlights
These plenary and concurrent sessions look to be outstanding, with all of them chaired by a respected leader in the field:
- Plenary Session: Clinical Translation of Genomics, (Chad Nusbaum, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Chair)
- Plenary Session: Genomic Studies I (Len Pennacchio, Joint Genome Institute, Chair)
- Concurrent Session: Genomic Technology (George Grills, Cornell University, Chair)
- Concurrent Session: Medical Sequencing and Genetic Variation (Elaine Mardis, Washington University School of Medicine, Chair)
- Concurrent Session: Microbial Genomics (Ken Dewar, McGill University and Génome Québec Innovation Centre, Chair)
- Plenary Session: Genomic Studies and New Technologies, (Eric Green, NHGRI, Chair)
- Concurrent Session: Cancer and Transcriptomes (Michael Metzker, Baylor College of Medicine, Chair)
- Concurrent Session: Genome Biology (Steven Jones, British Columbia Cancer Agency, Chair)
- Concurrent Session: Computational Biology (Mike Zody, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Chair)
- Plenary Session: Genomic Studies II (Deanna Church, NCBI, Chair)
- Plenary Session: Genomic Studies III (Elaine Mardis, Washington University School of Medicine, Chair)
Talk Highlights
The meeting agenda posted a few days ago offers some tantalizing hints of what’s to come. Most of the talks at this meeting are excellent, and here are some I’m particularly looking forward to:
Next-gen Sequencing Technologies
- Michael Ross, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, “Understanding Sequencing Bias Across Multiple Sequencing Technologies”
- John Healy, GnuBio, Inc., “The GnuBIO Platforms: Desktop Sequencer for the Clinical and Applied Markets”
Human Genome Sequencing
- Goncalo Abecasis, University of Michigan “Sequencing Thousands of Human Genomes”
- Ewan Birney, European Bioinformatics Institute, “ENCODE: Understanding Our Genome”
- Scott Devine, University of Maryland School of Medicine, “Natural Genetic Variation Associated with Exceptional Longevity in Humans”
- Elliott Margulies, Illumina Cambridge Ltd., “Whole Genome Analysis of Monozygotic Twins and Their Parents: Accurate Detection of Rare Disease-Causing and De Novo Variants”
Cancer Genomics
- Charles Perou, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “Molecular Classification of Breast Tumors Using Gene Expression Profiling and Its Translation Into Clinical Practices”
- Arend Sidow, Stanford University, “Breast Cancer Progression From Earliest Lesions to Clinically Relevant Carcinoma Revealed by Deep Whole Genome Sequencing”
- Sean Grimmond, University of Queensland, “Cohort Based Genome Analyses of Primary Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma”
- John McPherson, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research & Univ. of Toronto, “Evaluating Targeted Resequencing as a Diagnostic Tool: a Prospective Clinical Trial”
- Samuel Levy, Scripps Translational Science Institute, “Somatic Detection in Tumor Genomes Facilitated by de-novo Assembly and Genome-to-Genome Mapping Employing Illumina and Ion Torrent Sequence Data”
Transcriptome and Genome Regulation
- Shawn Levy, HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, “Transcriptomics”
- Rick Myers, HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, “Genetics and Epigenetics of Human Gene Regulation”
- Vivian Cheung, University of Pennsylvania, “RNA and DNA Sequence Differences in the Human Genome”
Genome Institute Posters
There will also be several excellent posters describing some of the latest research and technological advances at the Genome Institute at Washington University, including:
- Jasreet Hundal, Automated Profiling of Small RNA Molecules in Acute Myeloid Leukemia Using High-Throughput Next Generation Sequencing
- Bob Fulton, Variant Validation, Extension, and Interpretation Methods at the Genome Institute at Washington University
- David Dooling, Genome Modeling System: Data and Sample Management for High-Throughput Genomics
- Dan Koboldt, Integrative Genomic Analysis Methods for Large-Scale Cancer Sequencing Studies
- Vince Magrini, Combinatorial data sets: pragmatic applications derived from multiple sequencing technologies
Downloadable versions of all posters will be available after the meeting on the Genome Institute’s web site.
Companies to Watch
The sponsor list of this year’s meeting is a harbinger of companies that will have a big presence. Embattled Pacific Biosciences is the gold sponsor, while the makers of the two leading exome reagent kits (Agilent and Roche/Nimblegen) are silver sponsors. At the bronze level are Illumina, recently-acquired microfluidics maker Caliper, sequencing service company Complete Genomics, and kit/instrumentation vendors NuGen, RainDance, and Advanced Analytical. There are 20 other meeting sponsors, many of them reagent or instrumentation manufacturers.
There will be the usual dog-and-pony shows, but several new technologies will be highlighted in “scientific” talks. I use the term scientific loosely, as some companies have, in the past, wasted this opportunity by making it a half-hour-long commercial for their products and services. Let’s hope that these individuals know better:
- • Eric Schadt, Pacific Biosciences, “Integrating Kinetic Variation Events Identified From SMRT Sequencing Data with Other High-Dimension Molecular Profiling Data Uncovers Novel Regulatory Mechanisms”
- • John Healy, GnuBio, Inc., “The GnuBIO Platforms: Desktop Sequencer for the Clinical and Applied Markets”
- • Megan Hersh, LaserGen, Inc., “Accurate Genome Sequencing of Pathogens Using Lightning Terminators”
- • Joseph Boland, National Cancer Institute, [IonTorrent] “Exome Sequencing on the PGM: Exome in a Day”
- • Elliott Margulies, Illumina, “From Sample to Answer: Fast and Accurate Genome Sequencing for the Clinic”
- • Kevin Hrusovsky, Caliper Life Sciences, “Next Generation Technologies Enabling a Revolution in Medicine”
- • Carlos Bustamante, Stanford University, [Complete Genomics] “Population Genetic Inference in the Personal Era”
- • Elaine Mardis, Washington University School of Medicine, [NuGen] “Simplifying Genomic Sample Preparation with Digital Microfluidics”
I’ll be blogging frequently during the meeting, so be sure to subscribe by e-mail (top right of this page) to get the latest updates.