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Santa Fe, New Mexico
February 20, 2009:
The
National Center for Genome Resources (NCGR) announced today
the establishment of a services partnership with
Floragenex, Inc., a
privately held genetic technology company based in Eugene,
Oregon. This relationship will pair Floragenex’s proprietary
genomic discovery and application tools with the Illumina
sequencing and bioinformatics capabilities of NCGR.
Under the agreement, Floragenex and NCGR will collaborate on
services projects for customers in a range of fields, but
focused specifically on the rapidly expanding market for
discovery of new markers in crops. “The costs and capabilities
of DNA sequencing are now reaching the threshold where a new
segment of agricultural companies and academic researchers are
looking to apply the tools of genomics to their breeding and
research activities. Working with NCGR gives Floragenex a
collaborative technology partner that brings world class
capabilities to the challenges of genetic discovery for our
customers”, said Nathan Lillegard, CEO of Floragenex. “The
existing collaborations and experience NCGR has in the plant
biology field will enable Floragenex to expand awareness of our
platforms and tackle more exciting projects using our
technology. Together, we’ll be able to help each other deliver
more data and accelerate discoveries to our respective customers
and collaborators,” said Lillegard.
“Establishing a partnership with Floragenex is an enabler for
NCGR,” said Gregory May, NCGR Vice President and Genome Center
Director. “The technology platforms that Floragenex provides
expedite the discovery of genetic variants and will enable us,
together, to be the first to decode the genomes of economically
important crops. As the first Illumina Genome Analyzer Certified
Service Provider in North America, our efforts to build
strategic partnerships with groups such as Floragenex allow
scientists at NCGR to continue to bring the latest in
cutting-edge genome analysis platforms to our collaborations and
service customers,” said May.
Floragenex develops and delivers innovative, flexible,
applications of emerging genomic tools and technology to
researchers and companies working to advance science, create
value, and solve problems in agriculture, basic research, and
human health. Founded in 2006 as a spinout of the University of
Oregon, Floragenex is engaged with a range of academic,
government, and commercial customers around the world on
research projects in species ranging from food crops to model
research organisms.
NCGR is a nonprofit research institute dedicated to improving
human health and nutrition by genome sequencing and analysis. As
a bioinformatics, software, technology and service provider for
DNA sequencing projects, NCGR is a discovery engine that drives
projects working to discover the genetic origins of important
challenges in medicine and agriculture by offering advanced DNA
sequencing services and bioinformatics and software solutions to
academic and commercial researchers. |
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