Press release
Illumina Supports Canada's Nationwide COVID-19 Genome Sequencing Initiative
Data from 10,000 individuals affected by SARS-CoV-2 will be used to identify biomarkers that can help predict potential risk of serious disease and support
About this update from Illumina, Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"Data from 10,000 individuals affected by SARS-CoV-2 will be used to identify biomarkers that can help predict potential risk of serious disease and support the development of novel therapeutics to combat COVID-19\n\n\nSAN DIEGO, Nov. 3, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Illumina Inc. (NASDAQ: ILMN) today announced that its world-class sequencing and bioinformatics solutions are being used by HostSeq, part of the Canadian COVID-19 Genomics Network (CanCOGeN), to identify biomarkers that can help predict potential risk of serious disease and support the development of novel therapeutics to combat COVID-19. By sequencing the genomes of up to 10,000 patients diagnosed or affected by COVID-19 throughout Canada, the findings from this program will help researchers and the medical community better understand the role of human genetics in COVID-19 susceptibility. \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \nIllumina Connected Analytics (ICA), the company's signature bioinformatics solution, will enable researchers to safely and securely move petabyte-sized datasets generated by CGEn, the country's platform for sequencing and informatics, from state-of-art sequencers in Toronto (The Centre for Applied Genomics (TCAG) at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), Montreal (McGill Genome Centre), and Vancouver (Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre) into a common \"cloud\" accessible to approved researchers at some of the country's leading research facilities and hospitals. Illumina has worked closely with CGEn since early 2020 to help provide comprehensive, end-to-end solutions for reagent supply, sequencing and informatics to HostSeq.\n\"We are proud to support and contribute to the work being done by the Canadian research community to better understand the role of human genetics in COVID-19 susceptibility,\" said Alex Aravanis, MD, PhD, Chief Technology Officer, Head of Research and Product Development at Illumina. \"The data being shared within the HostSeq community, powered by cloud-based informatics, will help inform and accelerate the fight against COVID-19.\"\nStephen Scherer, PhD, Chief of Research at SickKids, and a scientific leader of CGEn and HostSeq noted, \"Dozens of researchers spanning the entire country are involved in this effort so data-sharing is essential.\" Scherer continued, \"If we have learned anything from the pandemic it is that the a...