Lab7 Systems Inc, Austin, Tex, has added a clinical annotation manager module to augment functionality of its enterprise sequencing platform, which provides users with complete control over their laboratory operations, from sample submission, through instrument runs, analyses, and actionable reports.
A complete data management and visualization tool, the module ties together third-party variant annotation databases with in-house annotations, enabling clinicians to build American College of Medical Genetics styled reports quickly from their variant call format files.
Chris Mueller, president, Lab7 Systems.
The technology enables users to employ the tools of their choice to manage and analyze their NGS data, says Chris Mueller, PhD, president and chief technology officer of Lab7 Systems. “While they can use any annotation database they want, we give users an environment to aggregate and query multiple databases as they create actionable reports, in much the same way our analysis pipeline manager allows them to use whatever bioinformatics tool they want for secondary analyses,” he says.
Lab7 Systems has also launched the clinical sequencing acceleration program, a limited-time opportunity designed for small pathology labs that are just starting to integrate sequencing into their offerings. Under the program, pathologists will have full access to the company’s platform under preferential licensing terms for three years. Lab7 Systems is currently seeking a maximum of five labs to participate in this program.
Additionally, the company has launched the academic sequencing acceleration program for academic labs, which operate under a different economic model that may limit access to commercially supported software tools. The open-ended program gives academic core labs an unlimited license to the company’s platform at a fraction of the cost of the full commercial license.
“We appreciate the do-it-yourself nature of many academic labs,” says Mueller, adding that the platform “provides the nuts and bolts for an informatics infrastructure while allowing users to customize it for their needs.” Through its program offerings, the company seeks to “help labs increase productivity and free their informatics staff to spend more time on the their science instead of managing all their software,” he says.
For more information, visit Lab7 Systems.
