Element Biosciences to showcase its DNA sequencing platform 'disrupting the genomics industry'

The developer of the Element AVITI System, its DNA sequencing platform that it says is disrupting the genomics industry, will be at the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) annual meeting starting today until Sunday, November 5.

Data generated on the AVITI platform will be featured in a poster by Phase Genomics on next-generation cytogenomics, where Hi-C DNA sequencing has the potential to provide data in one workflow that currently requires multiple distinct assays.

The company says this is important for labs because workflow consolidation has the potential to simplify lab operations, reduce costs, and use limited samples more efficiently. In addition, Element says, running OncoTerra on the AVITI could speed up turnaround times, as fewer samples can be batched while still meeting cost targets.

The company will be introducing its products and applications, including its $200 genome program, as well as a new grant program, the AVITI Accelerator Grant, in partnership with co-sponsor AUGenomics.

Element will also share results from a research study with the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), part of the City of Hope, that identified the likely genetic causes of neurological disorders in children. The findings were recently posted to medRxiv.

“We are excited to share examples of how the AVITI system is igniting the next round of genomics discovery with high quality, affordable data for any application, at any scale," said Shawn Levy, CTO and SVP of applications at Element Biosciences.

“And we are only at the beginning with Avidity sequencing, with clear paths to continued gains in performance and capabilities.”

Using AVITI, the research study leveraged a novel design of sequencing the parents at half the coverage of the child so that the entire trio could be sequenced on a single flow cell while retaining the ability to identify de novo variants. The sequencing, which took under 48 hours to complete, and cost $1,680 per trio, was performed by FYR Diagnostics, a service provider and early Element customer. With its new Cloudbreak chemistry, Element has further reduced the runtime to 38 hours.

Customers are responding to the exceptional quality AVITI is bringing to their projects.

"We are a service lab, so the argument that the quality we can promise is better than we can provide with other sequencers makes it much, much easier to convince our clients that they are in good hands with the sequencing," said Lutz Froenicke, PhD, director of the DNA Technologies and Expression Analysis Cores at the UC Davis Genome Center. "What personally impresses me is that the company came up with a sequencing chemistry that is so different from anything else, and it works amazingly well."