Eight research groups will be chosen to work with firms.

Expression Analysis and RainDance Technologies are sponsoring a program to work directly with cancer researchers to define a panel of high-priority genomic targets in order to facilitate large-scale targeted resequencing studies of cancer samples. The goal of the partnership is to accelerate research into complex diseases by helping to characterize rare mutations that would otherwise prove difficult or impossible to identify using alternative methods.


“Eight researchers will be chosen to work with our companies,” says Stephen E. Becker, vp, commercial operations, RainDance. The program will provide PCR primer design for genes and loci specified by study participants using the RainDance primer library design service; enrichment of target loci performed on the RainDance RDT 1000 by Expression Analysis, as well as sequencing of the enriched loci also by Expression Analysis on the Illumina Genome Analyzer; and data analysis including mapping and SNP detection.


“Advances in DNA sequencing technologies have provided enormous advantages in sequencing capacity. However, in order to leverage the benefits, there remains a need to analyze genomic loci at high resolution, across large numbers of samples,” said Steve McPhail, president and CEO of Expression Analysis. “Our collaboration with RainDance Technologies will enable us to provide targeted resequencing for areas of the genome thought to be involved in disease processes, thereby providing the research community with tools to accelerate the pace of cancer research.”


Interested researchers should visit www.expressionanalysis.com/collaborate for more information. Closing date to submit proposals is June 12, 2009, and the eight selected researchers will be announced the last week in June.



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