Inside the Diagnostics Industry: NGS Rapidly Being Integrated Into Clinical Laboratories

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) platforms are becoming more automated, more cost-efficient, and while not quite turnkey, are reaching the point in ease of use that clinical applications of the technology are becoming mainstream. Clinical laboratories’ adoption of the technology is occurring at a rate that surpasses the uptake of other molecular technologies, including polymerase chain reaction (PCR), experts say. DTET surveyed the NGS landscape to evaluate both the latest advances in the technology and trends in adoption by clinical laboratories. Technological Evolution Faster and cheaper are the two words scientists eagerly listen for when instrument manufacturers unveil their newest sequencing offerings. So far, 2014 has greeted laboratory scientists with some exciting announcements. The first publicly released data generated from U.K.-based Oxford Nanopore Technology’s much anticipated thumb drive-sized MinION sequencer was a mixed bag. A technical review of the device by collaborator David Jaffe, from the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass., who used it to assemble two bacterial genomes, concluded that, as promised, the nanopore-based sequencing machine allowed for much longer reads (an average length of 5.4 kilobases, but up to 10 kilobases), compared to Illumina machines, which deliver fragments hundreds of base pairs long. The technology differs substantially from other NGS […]