AsianScientist (Jun. 12, 2012) – GE Healthcare and genomics organization BGI jointly announced today a multi-year research collaboration in stem cell science.
The objective of the collaboration to explore the underlying genetic variation between ethnically diverse human stem cell lines, which may help to help advance the potential of stem cell-derived assays for use in drug discovery and toxicity testing.
The collaboration was announced at a signing ceremony attended by Dr. Amr Abid, General Manager Cell Technologies, GE Healthcare Life Sciences; Lin Fang, Vice President of BGI; Ye Yin, Deputy President of BGI; and Yutao Du, Deputy President of BGI.
Two project are being undertaken in this collaboration. In the first project, BGI is performing genome sequencing and epigenetic analysis on cardiomyocytes and hepatocytes supplied by GE Healthcare Life Sciences. The aim is to map out the genetic variation across an ethnically diverse range of stem cell lines and to examine the changes that occur during differentiation into specific cell types.
In the second project, GE Healthcare is providing BGI with an IN Cell Analyzer 2000 system, a research tool for high content cellular imaging analysis. The analyzer will be used by BGI to investigate gene function for a library of previously sequenced cell types by overexpressing or blocking the activity of single genes and observing the effect in selected populations of cells.
“The importance of high-throughput sequencing has been increasing rapidly in the areas of healthcare, agriculture, environment, and others,” said Yutao Du, Deputy President of BGI.
“Genetic variation analysis of functional cells derived from embryonic stem cells may provide a promising cell model resource for drug development and cell therapy,” he added.
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Source: BGI.
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