Syngenta Selects GenomeQuest as Data Platform for Next Generation Sequencing

GenomeQuest announced that Syngenta Biotechnology, Inc. selected GenomeQuests sequence data management platform for biological research using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS).

Enabled by the arrival of NGS, Syngenta has dramatically increased its investigation of plant, insect and microbial genomes and transcriptomes. In doing so, they have accumulated NGS data from thousands of individual samples.

With GenomeQuest, Syngenta researchers can now pinpoint genes and variants that increase plant yield and improve plant protection as never before. With over 4,000 researchers and $1 billion dedicated annually to research, Syngenta is now integrating NGS using GenomeQuests data platform across its agriculture product lines.

Erik Legg, Group Leader of Omics Application and Research at Syngenta, explains, "As a company, we are in the midst of an NGS revolution. After thorough evaluation, we concluded that GenomeQuests core technology could scale NGS data management and analysis across our organization."

Richard Resnick, GenomeQuest Acting CEO, notes, "Clearly, Syngenta is committed to leadership in applying NGS to improve the speed and accuracy of their research. Just in our work with them so far, their scientific community is generating 10X more data than originally expected and inspiring immense innovation. We look forward to moving the state-of-the-art in comparative biology forward with Syngenta and, ultimately, helping the world grow more with less."

Syngenta has deployed a mixed-model NGS platform, complementing internal hardware with external capacity provided by collaboration with several global organizations. The company also plans to use the GenomeQuest application programmer interface (API) to customize GenomeQuest, host existing research applications, create whole new applications, and connect to enterprise and partner systems.

The Syngenta product line benefiting from NGS spans seeds and crop protection, including more than 25 plant species, as well as numerous insects and microbes.

Syngenta NGS sequences and annotations will be stored and processed in the GenomeQuest data center. Based on a load-balanced, hardware/software architecture co-developed by GenomeQuest and SGI, the center was recently upgraded to multi-genome capacity and now offers direct access to processing at a scale previously found only inside genome centers.

About GenomeQuest

GenomeQuest, the global leader in sequence data management, helps life science organizations realize the full promise of genomics. Over 160 leading health and agriculture companies use GenomeQuest for mission-critical work, including nine of the top ten pharmaceuticals. The companys core technology is the GQ-Engine-a database engine that is purpose-built for storing, managing, and analyzing sequence data at whole- and multi-genome scale.