—Study uses BioTrove's OpenArray™ system to determine the role of the NOS1AP gene in cardiovascular disease
Woburn, MA, October 9, 2006 - At this week's meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG), researchers from the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine will present data from a 25,000-patient SNP genotyping association study that was run using the BioTrove OpenArray™ system.
The study demonstrates that genetic variation in or around the gene NOS1AP influences QT interval, which is associated with cardiovascular mortality. These results confirm the findings of a previous study performed on a smaller patient population. Studies are ongoing to find additional genetic sequences that contribute to the factors associated with cardiovascular disease. In the future, scientists hope to link the presence or absence of these genetic markers to diagnosis and treatment of patients at risk for sudden cardiac death.
"While methodology currently exists for genotyping hundreds of thousands of SNPs in a few samples - or a few SNPs in ten thousand samples - until now there has not been a good technology for genotyping tens of thousands of samples for hundreds of SNPs," said Dr. Aravinda Chakravarti, Director of the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine at Hopkins. "This is a critical area for complex medical genetics, in which common variants from multiple genes, each with small effect, are likely the norm, and thus increasingly large sample sizes will be required. BioTrove is currently trying to fill this gap."
The OpenArray™ system is a platform capable of performing nanoliter scale PCR-based reactions, such as SNP genotyping, in a high throughput manner. Through placement of assays and samples in patterns on the OpenArray™ plate, researchers can configure over 3000 assays on a single plate.
"Understanding the relationship between genetic markers and disease risk is an increasingly important component of drug discovery, development , and ultimately, patient treatment," said Bob Ellis, Executive Chairman of BioTrove, Inc. "We are pleased to have provided Dr. Chakravarti's lab with the technology needed for this large population study. The ability to genotype of 25,000 patients for 32 SNPs in only two months will enable many more similar studies."
The same research team from the McKusick-Nathans Institute for Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins will also describe a novel genotype clustering algorithm developed using the BioTrove OpenArray™ system. Projects on the scale of the 25,000-cardiovascular patient study, which generated 1.6 million data points require improved methods of automatically calling genotypes in large patient studies.
About BioTrove, Inc.
BioTrove offers two innovative platform technologies dramatically increasing pharmaceutical screening and SNP genotyping throughput for the purpose of accelerating drug-discovery decisions and pipeline development. Its products and services ensure that an industry committed to accuracy and speed can meet business goals.
OpenArray™ enables genomics researchers to generate SNP data in the hundreds of thousands of points. The OpenArray™ flexible format and nanoliter scale system allows adjustment of sample and assay numbers for economical high-throughput genotyping.
RapidFire™ Lead Discovery enables difficult targets (lipids, fatty acids, phospholipids, steroids, prostaglandins, and others) to be screened using a high throughput mass spectrometry in less than eight seconds per sample.
For more information, please visit www.biotrove.com or contact:
Dr. Albert Luderer, President and CEO
BioTrove, Inc.
781-721-3648
aluderer@biotrove.com
Arielle Bernstein
Makovsky + Company
212-508-9643
abernstein@makovsky.com
|
