(ANN ARBOR, Mich.) Swift Biosciences today announced availability of its eagerly anticipated Normalase™ Kit, a revolutionary enzymatic library normalization product that streamlines the cumbersome steps following next-generation sequencing (NGS) library preparation. In addition, compared to conventional normalization, Swift Normalase saves cost on sequencing by reducing read depth variation within a pool.

Normalase provides an efficient, robust, scalable and cost-effective means to significantly simplify the work necessary for loading balanced libraries on sequencing instruments. The technology represents Swift’s first foray beyond library preparation, filling an unmet gap in the sequencing market to drastically reduce and simplify the labor required to optimize sequencing results.

Today, prior to any sequencing, NGS library technicians must first:

1. Undertake numerous pipetting steps
2. Calculate sample-specific volumes and dilutions
3. Purchase and manage quantification consumables and instrumentation
4. Finally…analyze and act on quantification data to adjust individual sample volumes for pooling.

Normalase consolidates all these pain points down to a simple, two-step workflow that saves time and costs. This is achieved by eliminating serial dilutions, adjusting pipettors to different volumes for each sample, determining library size, calculating molarity, analyzing quantification data and converting outputs needed to load the sequencer.

The first step of Normalase replaces standard library amplification by integrating special primers to pre-condition the libraries. This is followed by two 15-minute incubations to normalize libraries to 4 nM within a single pool. Because of the unique workflow, Normalase also mitigates index-hopping for libraries sequenced on patterned flow cells.

“For routine sequencing labs interested in saving time and costs across sample NGS workflows, the Swift Normalase Kit is a game-changer for expediting library quantification and loading”, said Mida Pezeshkian, PhD, Swift’s Product Manager. “Normalase replaces the headaches of quantifying, analyzing, calculating and diluting—it’s quant-free, bead-free and allows bulk processing to save you time and obtain more evenly balanced sequencing data.”

The first Swift Normalase Kit available is suitable for libraries with full-length indexed adapters that have been added by ligation, such as those produced by Swift’s own 2S Plus and 2S Turbo Flexible Kits, as well as libraries from Illumina and Roche/Kapa. Swift also plans in the near future to release versions of the Normalase product that will support PCR-free libraries and workflows that require indexing PCR primers to complete library construction.