Product News: Illumina Commences Shipment of the Human1M BeadChip

Illumina, Inc. announced today that it began shipment of the new Human1M DNA Analysis BeadChip last week, a solution that contains more than one million single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on a single chip.

In addition to targeting an extensive catalog of known copy number variation (CNV) sites, the Human1M BeadChip contains novel CNV content, developed in collaboration with deCODE genetics and not currently available through any other array or public database. The comprehensive content of the Human1M BeadChip offers the scientific community the highest genomic coverage, power, and value per sample. Powered by the Infinium^® assay, which has demonstrated superior performance and delivered robust data to customers, researchers are able to obtain and publish results in record-setting time.

"By taking a combined tagSNP, gene-centric, and evenly spaced approach, this BeadChip provides remarkable genomic-coverage, which is critical to uncovering the genetic basis of multiple human disorders," said David Duggan, Ph.D., Director of the Advanced Genomics Technology Center at the Translational Genomics Research Institute. "For multiple studies, we have planned or are already underway, I am confident that the Human1M BeadChip will provide the statistical power to make breakthrough discoveries."

The Human1M BeadChip is the most comprehensive genotyping research tool available for genome-wide association studies. When used with Illumina's integrated data analysis software tool, BeadStudio, CNVs and SNPs can be analyzed simultaneously for a comprehensive view of DNA variation across the genome.

"The Human1M BeadChip includes a high density of SNPs in coding regions of the human genome, as well as in CNV regions including "nonSNPable" regions. Increased tagSNP coverage, together with the industry's best SNP uniformity and dense coverage in high-value regions like MHC, ADME, and segmental duplications, makes it possible for researchers to run fewer samples to detect a disease-associated SNP," said Carsten Rosenow, Ph.D., Senior Marketing Manager, DNA Analysis. "The combination of the high call rates we consistently deliver across the Infinium product line and the recently launched controls database, iControlDB, will help to accelerate researchers' time-to-result and cut study costs by up to 50 percent."

"Our team is very excited to use the new Human1M BeadChip for the next phase of our autism project because it promises to give us all of the data we will need to address the nature of this complex disease," said Steve Scherer, Ph.D., Senior Scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children, Director of the Center for Applied Genomics, and Professor at the University of Toronto.

According to Kevin Shianna, Ph.D., Director of Duke Universities IGSP Genotyping Facility, whose group was a beta-test site for the Human1M, "This BeadChip offers us expanded coverage of variation in HLA, enhanced tagging of African samples, as well as probes specifically targeting copy number variation. These properties make it ideal for our ongoing studies in Africans of host factors influencing response to HIV-AIDS. Our own beta testing of the Human1M shows that this BeadChip works as reliably and accurately as earlier Illumina BeadChips, and we are eager to employ it in our studies."

"Our products help researchers do breakthrough science. Illumina's Infinium products have been used to study genetic variants linked to Type-2 diabetes, breast and prostate cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn's disease, and other complex conditions," said Jay Flatley, President and Chief Executive Officer of Illumina. "Results from these studies have been published in more than 20 peer-reviewed studies; this is the true barometer of the quality and power that Illumina's products have to offer. With the Human1M BeadChip, we believe we have delivered to the community the most powerful DNA Analysis tool to address any complex disease study with unmatched performance and total experiment cost."