National Cancer Institute Utilizing Fluidigm’s 96.96 Dynamic Array for Rapid, Cost-Effective Follow up to Whole-Genome SNP Association Scans

Integrated Fluidic Circuits to Help Accelerate Publishing of Most-Promising Genetic Susceptibility Markers SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.–Fluidigm today announced that the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the U.S. Government’s principal agency for cancer research, is using Fluidigm’s BioMark™ System for Genetic Engineering to conduct rapid, cost-effective follow up to its whole-genome SNP association scans. The NCI’s Core Genotyping Facility is utilizing Fluidigm’s BioMark 96.96 Dynamic Arrays to perform medium-plex Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) genotyping. A key goal of the program is to accelerate efforts to replicate and publish the most promising genetic susceptibility markers implicated by the many on-going genome-wide association scans (GWAS) at the NCI. “Fluidigm’s new 96.96 Dynamic Array allows the NCI to significantly expand its service offerings in cancer genotyping research,” said Gajus Worthington, Fluidigm President and CEO. “They have been successfully using our 48.48 arrays, and in their comparison tests Fluidigm’s new 96.96 arrays performed exceptionally well.” “The National Cancer Institute’s Core Genotyping Facility collaborates with researchers at other government research centers and academic institutions with the goal of developing screens to identify individuals susceptible to particular forms of cancer,” continued Worthington. “Our 96.96 Dynamic Array delivers greater than 99 percent call rates and can process more than 70,000 genotypes in a day.” The NCI completed a prostate cancer GWAS follow-up study, using approximately 60 SNPs, assayed on 15,000 samples, with standard 5’nuclease PCR chemistry and BioMark™ dynamic arrays. The findings from this study were presented by Kevin Jacobs, Genome Scan Operations and Analytical Lead, National Cancer Institute, at the 2008 European Society of Human Genetics in Barcelona, Spain on June 1st, 2008. Fluidigm is the inventor of integrated fluidic circuits (IFCs). The company’s BioMark System uses integrated fluidic circuit (IFC) technology to reduce complexity, improve throughput, deliver nanoliter precision and provide significant cost-savings (less reagent and smaller samples) for high-throughput genotyping applications. The NCI can run 96 samples against 96 primer-probe sets, generating 9,216 reactions at a time using Fluidigm’s new 96.96 dynamic array. This IFC requires only 192 pipetting steps (as compared to over 18,000 pipetting steps when conducting this volume of experiments on a standard 384 microwell plates). About Fluidigm Fluidigm develops, manufactures and markets proprietary Integrated Fluidic Circuit (IFC) systems that significantly improve productivity in life science research. Fluidigm’s IFCs enable the simultaneous performance of thousands of sophisticated biochemical measurements in extremely minute volumes. These “integrated circuits for biology” are made possible by miniaturizing and integrating liquid handling components on a single microfabricated device. Fluidigm’s IFC systems, consisting of instrumentation, software and single-use IFCs, increase throughput, decrease costs and enhance sensitivity compared to conventional laboratory systems. Fluidigm products have not been cleared or approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use as a diagnostic and are only available for research use. For more information, please visit www.Fluidigm.com. Fluidigm, the Fluidigm logo, Topaz, BioMark, and NanoFlex are trademarks of Fluidigm Corporation.

< | >