Helios Biosciences Deploys Genetic Analysis System at Ontario Institute for Cancer Research

Helicos BioSciences, a life science company focused on genetic analysis technologies, announced the placement of a Helicos Genetic Analysis System at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) with Drs. Tom Hudson and John McPherson.

"We are very excited to be working with such a distinguished institution on the application of our technology to the study of cancer genomics," said Ron Lowy, Helicos CEO.

The Helicos Genetic Analysis System is a commercially available, single molecule sequencing technology, and enables scientists to conduct studies in the fields of genome biology, cancer research, common diseases, and microbiology without DNA ligation or amplification. Genetic analysis with Helicos's technology eliminates the biases, complexity and errors introduced by DNA amplification, requires minute amounts of starting material, and provides the most direct and accurate view of biological samples.

"The translational cancer research we are conducting at our center can benefit greatly from the advantages of single molecule sequencing," noted Tom Hudson, President and Scientific Director of the OICR. "We hope to use this technology for the unbiased and characterization of tumor samples to ultimately lead to discoveries that have a clinical impact."

Helicos BioSciences is a life science company focused on genetic analysis technologies for the research, drug discovery, and diagnostic markets. Helicos' proprietary True Single Molecule Sequencing, tSMS, technology allows direct measurement of billions of strands of DNA enabling scientists to perform experiments and ask questions never before possible. Helicos is a recipient of the $1,000 genome grant and committed to providing scientists the tools to unlock the era of genomic medicine.

The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research is a new research institute dedicated to research in prevention, early detection, diagnosis and treatment of cancer. OICR is a not-for-profit corporation funded by the Government of Ontario through the Ministry of Research and Innovation.

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