4 10, 2025

How big would ABI377 plates need to be to deliver NovaSeq X Plus output?

By | October 4th, 2025|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: , |0 Comments

I asked ChatGPT this question one evening and working through the session was fun. Maybe it needs more fact-checking…I know some of my readers are fastidious enough to call me out if I’m wrong but here goes. When I started in Genomics it was still […]

4 10, 2025

cfDNA fragmentomics reviewed

By | October 4th, 2025|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: , , |0 Comments

This is a fantastic and comprehensive review on Cell-free DNA fragmentomics in cancer. Out in Cancer Cell by Denis Lo et al. In this review focused on cell-free DNA (cfDNA) fragmentomics in the context of cancer diagnostics the authors explore how analyzing cfDNA fragmentation patterns can provide […]

1 10, 2025

Unlocking the Potential of Urine-Based Liquid Biopsies

By | October 1st, 2025|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: |0 Comments

I’m really pleased to say I’m an author on a new article in Nature Cancer discussing the potential of using urine-based liquid biopsies for cancer detection, particularly through the analysis of circulating-cell-free-tumor DNA in urine (utDNA, cufDNA or ucpDNA). While urine offers advantages because it […]

16 02, 2023

#AGBT23: what was hot in the hottest NGS tech conference?

By | February 16th, 2023|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: |0 Comments

I recently returned from the AGBT meeting in Sunny Florida (where it was hot) just 8 months after last years COVID delayed event. That event saw the launch of multiple new Sequencing Companies: Element Bio, Singular Genomics, and Ultima Genomics (the $100 genome company). And […]

20 11, 2019

@illumina response to CMA

By | November 20th, 2019|Categories: Uncategorized|6 Comments

Illumina’s response to the CMA’s recent findings that their acquisition of PacBio would be anti-competitive was published on the CMA website today. And both theirs, and PacBio’s stock are up (a little bit) as a result. Their suggested remedies include: To grant a perpetual, royalty-free, […]

8 10, 2019

@Illumina and @Qiagen’s IVD deal: what does it mean for NGS?

By | October 8th, 2019|Categories: Next-generation sequencing, Uncategorized|1 Comment

Yesterday Illumina and Qiagen announced a 15 year deal to partner on development of NGS in vitro diagnostic kits to run on Illumina sequencers. And Qiagen, more quietly, announced that development of the GeneReader platform will cease. The second piece of news is unsurprising; I’d written about Qiagens […]

25 07, 2019

Will @Illumina succeed in buying @PacBio?

By | July 25th, 2019|Categories: Uncategorized|8 Comments

The current CMA report “Anticipated acquisition by Illumina, Inc. of Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc. Decision on relevant merger situation and substantial lessening of competition” makes for some interesting, if frustrating, reading. Interesting because of what the report says but frustrating because of the redaction […]

19 06, 2019

@Illumina moving into baseball?

By | June 19th, 2019|Categories: Uncategorized|1 Comment

OK so Illumina is not (to my knowledge) planing on sponsoring the San Diego Padres. The title of this post was inspired by a wonderful bit of mistaken transcription of the recent Goldman Sachs Healthcare conference presentation by Francis deSouza “sequencers today generate baseball”…I think […]

18 04, 2019

#CRISPR Diagnostics part 2

By | April 18th, 2019|Categories: Diagnostics Tech, Methods and applications, Uncategorized|Tags: , |0 Comments

#CRISPR diagnostics got even more exciting with two big announcements last month. Firstly, Sherlock Biosciences, has spun out from The Broad Institute and Wyss Institute commercialising the SHERLOCK and INSPECTR technologies (I’ll be covering the battle for CRISPR Dx dominance in this post). Secondly, researchers at […]

21 09, 2018

Cell line variability – what will you do?

By | September 21st, 2018|Categories: Uncategorized|0 Comments

Last month Nature published a paper that revealed what many scientists knew or suspected. Cancer cell lines evolve very quickly due to positive clonal selection driven by cell culture conditions. And that this is likely the reason why the same cell line used in different labs […]

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