This summer, the Laboratory Medicine Program (LMP) at UHN will become one of the first clinical sites in Canada to receive a NovaSeq X Plus Sequencer (Illumina). This top-of-the-line machine will enable faster, more powerful, and more sustainable genome sequencing.
“This will allow us to increase capacity, offer more comprehensive testing and will also lower our per-base sequencing costs,” says Tracy Stockley, Head of Clinical Laboratory Genetics at LMP.
The NovaSeq X Plus system delivers up to 16 Tb of output, allowing sequencing of 128 human genomes at 30× coverage or 96 human genomes at 40× coverage per dual 25B flow cell run. A new chemistry XLEAP-SBS is also being introduced at the same time, reducing reagent costs per base.
“This is a bigger jump ahead than we’ve ever had in our next-generation sequencing machines,” says Tracy. “The capacity is 25 to 60 times more than what we have right now.”
Current Next-generation sequencing (NGS) work in the Genome Diagnostics lab supports patients with solid tumors, hematologic malignancies (cancers that affect the blood, bone, bone marrow and lymph nodes), and hereditary cancers. The NovaSeq X Plus will allow LMP to expand NGS testing for these disorders, and expand into new testing areas such as analysis of cell-free circulating tumor DNA for early cancer detection and monitoring of residual disease
By procuring this powerful sequencer, LMP’s genetics team continues to push the boundaries of genomic medicine and offer the best patient care possible.
The Pathology Report 
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