Macrogen (now Psomagen) recently partnered with Edico Genome to reinforce its Bio-IT infrastructure with new DRAGEN processors. By deploying several DRAGEN Bio-IT Processors, which are designed and manufactured by Edico Genome, Macrogen (now Psomagen) will be able to provide faster processing and analysis of high-throughput NGS data.
Accurate DNA sequencing and genomic analysis are reliant on advanced technology. To this end, clinicians and researchers use powerful processors and collection instruments to capture and analyze genetic data from patients. The DRAGEN will advance and improve Macrogen’s ability to provide this service. The reason: The DRAGEN has been designed to meet the data demands of DNA sequencing and analysis while ensuring maximum sensitivity and precision. In tests with the new processors, Macrogen (now Psomagen) found that they could analyze a HiSeq X Ten genome in just 26 minutes.
The announcement displays Macrogen’s growing commitment to building the world’s finest bioinformatics data infrastructure. Already, Macrogen (now psomagen) facilities around the world use a range of next-generation sequencing systems, including instruments from Illumina, Thermo Fisher, Roche, and PacBio to collect and process genetic data. These instruments are complemented by Macrogen’s 11 petabytes of storage and 3,000+ core clusters. However, due to the volume of genetic data that’s collected, a “data bottleneck” can occur when trying to process and analyze multiple genomes each day.
With the addition of the DRAGEN processors, Macrogen (now psomagen) will greatly reinforce and optimize its data analysis capacity. Already, Macrogen’s IT infrastructure can generate more than 500 gigabytes of next-generation sequencing data each day. The new processors will add bandwidth to Macrogen’s data analysis pipeline, helping to maximize the amount of data that can be analyzed efficiently.
DRAGEN is the first Bio-IT processor built for next-generation sequencing analysis in the world. By using a system designed specifically for the demands of NGS data analysis, DRAGEN helps drastically reduce the time and computational cost of NGS analysis, while ensuring high specificity and accuracy.
DRAGEN processors perform similar tasks compared to NGS software and cloud-based platforms, including the mapping, aligning and variant calling of genomic data using highly advanced algorithms. DRAGEN is built to perform analysis of more than 50 whole-genomes in fewer than 24 hours. In fact, recently, DRAGEN set a world record for delivering a 26-hour diagnosis using whole-genome sequencing for critically ill infants.