User:Scooterdog2/RainDance
RainDance Technologies
RainDance Technologies is a Lexington (MA)-based startup company that has just started commercialization (March 2009) of their instrument, the RDT 1000, for genomic target enrichment for next-generation sequencing.
Using advanced microfluidics, RainDance is able to create picoliter-scale droplets with a fine level of individual control, and their first application can setup over a million droplets each containing a unique single-plex PCR primer pair combined with a genomic template.
RainDance takes genomic coordinates or gene lists, and will design single-plex primer sequences for all the loci of interest, synthesize the primers, and package them into individual primer-pair droplets called a primer library. The RDT 1000 instrument will take 2ug of genomic DNA template, and combine that template with each of the primer-pair droplets (the complexity of the library can range from 384 to 4000 individual primer pairs).
The enrichment is even since the primers are the limiting reagent in the PCR, and the volume of primers and their concentration are tightly controlled, along with the number of replicate droplets are held to a consistent number in their manufacturing. Reports of 95% target coverage within a 10-fold read representation are given, along with the idea that a researcher does not need an average fold-coverage of 1000x for a given target (typical for hybridization-based enrichment), but something on the order of 1/10th that sequencing capacity (on the order of 100x average coverage). This efficiency in sequencing capacity may give RainDance a decided edge in the competitive marketplace for targeted enrichment for next-generation sequencing.
Early customers of RainDance include the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (Ontario Canada) and Expression Analysis (Durham NC).