BioNano Genomics Launches New IrysChip V2 at ASHG 2013 Annual Meeting

BioNano Genomics has announced the launch of a new high throughput chip for human genome analysis. The new IrysChip V2 for the company’s Irys System allows full detection of the structural variations in each human genome with a 15 fold increase in throughput in comparison with other devices.

The new IrysChip V2, launched at the American Society for Human Genetics Annual Meeting 2013 in Boston paves way for researchers to study the biological significance of these structural variations. A full understanding of structural variations and its effects has a huge relevance in drug discovery, diagnostics, agriculture and biofuel development and other areas.

Even though the connection between structural variations in the genome and certain medical conditions has been known for some time, there was no suitable technology available to conduct a comprehensive study into it until the launch of IrysChip V2. This new chip in Irys System with its long read technology empowers researchers to analyze DNA structures of up to 1 million base pairs and detect structural variations such as deletions, duplications, copy number, variants, insertions etc in each genome. IrysChip, with its proprietary NanoChannel arrays linearize DNA and prevent molecules from folding or overlapping into each other and creates precise long range genome maps using labelled DNA as less as 300 ng as working samples.

IrysChip V2 has a throughput of 50-100 GB/chip, with 2 flowcells having 13,000 parallel NanoChannels each and is capable of imaging several gigabases of DNA per hour.