Skip to content

Inside DNAnexus

Product updates, industry insights, opinions and references. From the team powering the Genomics Revolution.

Happy Holidays to All!

happy holidays

As 2012 winds down, we wanted to take a moment to wish everyone a happy and healthy holiday season. Before we get swept up in the frenzy of a new year, we’ll take this opportunity to look back at what 2012 brought us.

The year kicked off with all sorts of excitement at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, during which Life Tech’s Ion Torrent announced that it would unveil a platform that could sequence a full human genome in a single day — for the bargain price of $1,000. While we haven’t heard of anyone achieving that $1,000 milestone just yet, being so tantalizingly close to the target spurred a whole new conversation this year around the informatics implications of it. What will it take to get the genome analysis and interpretation step down to $1,000? We haven’t heard a concrete plan yet, but we’re pleased to see that the discussion is focused on analysis, since that will be critical in getting genomics into the clinic.

Here at DNAnexus, 2012 was a big year thanks to ever-increasing activity from our users. In the past year, our users processed and analyzed more data than they did since the launch in early 2010 (2010 and 2011 combined). It’s great to see that people are coming back again and again — and that they’re bringing more data when they do. This has further been exemplified by the fact that our users have also been busily publishing this year, as we noted recently in a round-up of recent papers using DNAnexus.

Overall, we’ve seen a surge of interest in cloud-based solutions for genomic data; we think that’s partly due to the increasing sequencing capacity as sequencing platforms become more affordable, and partly to people growing more comfortable with the cloud’s usefulness and security. At conferences we attended throughout the year — from AGBT and ABRF this spring to Bio-IT World and ESHG in the summer to Beyond the Genome and ASHG this fall, among others — we saw more vendors joining the space, increasing interest from scientists, and more posters and papers from researchers who have used cloud computing for their genomic projects.

Add this all up, it’s clear that we’re at the beginning of a golden age for genomic analysis and interpretation. We are thrilled to be part of it, and more excited that we’ll soon be launching a new platform catering to bioinformaticians and computational scientists in 2013. In the meantime, enjoy the holidays!

 

About DNAnexus

DNAnexus the leader in biomedical informatics and data management, has created the global network for genomics and other biomedical data, operating in 33 countries including North America, Europe, China, Australia, South America, and Africa. The secure, scalable, and collaborative DNAnexus Platform helps thousands of researchers across a spectrum of industries — biopharmaceutical, bioagricultural, sequencing services, clinical diagnostics, government, and research consortia — accelerate their genomics programs.

The DNAnexus team is made up of experts in computational biology and cloud computing who work with organizations to tackle some of the most exciting opportunities in human health, making it easier—and in many cases feasible—to work with genomic data. With DNAnexus, organizations can stay a step ahead in leveraging genomics to achieve their goals. The future of human health is in genomics. DNAnexus brings it all together.