PacBio, a developer of high-quality, highly accurate sequencing solutions, announced the first customer shipments of Revio long-read sequencing systems commenced on March 8, 2023.
Key highlights:
- PacBio have began its first customer shipments of its Revio system, allowing for an increase in throughput and lower sequencing costs.
- Researchers can use the Revio system to explore the full genome in one run: from telomere-to-telomere with phasing information, small variants, structural variants, and epigenetic profiles.
- The Broad Institute and Wellcome Sanger Institute are among the first to receive Revio, with plans to complete several thousand long-read sequencing samples, and increase its utilisation of long-read sequencing in various applications, respectively.
As previously announced, the Revio system features significant advances in SMRT Cell design, compute, and system architecture. Together, this enables a dramatic increase in throughput and lower sequencing costs with the trusted power of HiFi chemistry, which offers exceptional accuracy and direct methylation detection.
"Revio is a remarkable product, and I am excited to announce the commencement of broad commercial shipments. This is an important step in our mission to enable the promise of genomics to better human health and it is rewarding to see our team successfully execute on our aggressive product development timeline. The Revio system will empower our customers to leverage the power of HiFi sequencing at scale and I believe the system will enable a significant paradigm shift in our understanding of biology," said Christian Henry, president and chief executive officer of PacBio.
With the Revio system, researchers will be able to scale their interrogation of the full genome: from telomere-to-telomere with phasing information, small variants, structural variants, and epigenetic profiles all in the same run. This will allow further exploration of biology and offers the potential to better understand the role of genetics in health and disease.
Among the first customers receiving Revio systems are many who have deep roots in the Human Genome Project: Baylor College of Medicine, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (Broad), Wellcome Sanger Institute, and Washington University in St. Louis. Broad is one of many customers to purchase multiple systems, ordering ten Revio systems to scale long-read sequencing for population sequencing initiatives. The ten Revio systems at Broad will have the same sequencing capacity as 150 Sequel IIe systems.
"With the increased capacity now available, the Broad is looking to scale up significantly and complete several thousand long-read sequencing samples. We are focused on proving the utility of long-read sequencing in research and rare disease applications. We are also excited to continue to investigate and push the boundaries of how long-read sequencing could transform discovery with higher resolution isoform sequencing," said Niall Lennon, senior director of translational genomics and institute scientist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
In the plant and animal genomic space, the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville, Ala., plans to use its Revio systems to scale its efforts to improve crop species. "We can make a big impact when we scale genomics for breeding," said Josh Clevenger, Ph.D., faculty investigator at HudsonAlpha. "It has been difficult to generate enough good quality genomes to understand variation. With the Revio system’s high throughput and high-quality reads, we will be able to quickly and cost-effectively look at genomes to identify traits."
Revio systems will be shipped worldwide, with Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences (MBRU) set to expand their large-scale research projects with Revio.
"We are thrilled that Mohammed bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences will be one of the first centres in the world to receive the Revio sequencing technology," said Alawi Alsheikh-Ali, professor at MBRU and chief academic officer at Dubai Academic Health Corporation (DAHC).
"With its improved throughput and high accuracy, this technology represents a major advancement in the field of DNA sequencing and is expected to accelerate our understanding of the complex biological systems that underlie human health and disease."
Meanwhile, alongside Darwin Tree of Life sequencing, the Wellcome Sanger Institute is expected to use Revio to increase its utilisation of long-read sequencing in various applications, including de novo genome assembly, single-cell transcriptomics, and variant detection.
Ian Johnston, associate director of sequencing operations and R&D at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, commented: "We are delighted to be implementing the Revio sequencing platform at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, taking the next step forward to expand our PacBio long-read sequencing technologies. The platform’s increased capacity will help to support accelerating the generation of de novo genome assemblies for novel species as we support a goal to sequence all complex life on Earth.
"The Revio platform provides another step forward in long-read sequencing technology to support our mission to generate and use genome sequences to advance understanding of biology and improve health,"
Additional Revio systems will also be shipped to customers in China, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, and Sweden. Revio systems garnered interest from many institutions in Asia Pacific, and multiple units will be shipped to Macrogen, Berry Genomics, GrandOmics, DNA Link, HaoRui Genomics, and JMDNA.
PacBio announced orders of 76 Revio systems in the quarter ended December 31, 2022, making it the most successful product announcement in PacBio’s history. PacBio expects to ship at least 25 Revio systems during the first quarter of 2023 and will continue to scale throughout the year.