Shawn Levy, PhD / HudsonAlpha Discovery
High-quality sequencing to advance genomic research
Because of its increased use in research and the clinic, high-quality, reliable genome sequencing is important to the scientific and medical communities at large. Tech- nological advances and automation have increased the speed and lowered the cost of sequencing so much that it has become a routine part of both basic research and rare disease diagnosis in healthcare. The HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology and companies that reside on its biotechnology campus have a history of success in the development and implementation of high-qual- ity, top-of-the-line sequencing to advance genomic research and improve health around the world. The HudsonAlpha Genomic Services Laboratory (GSL), established by HudsonAlpha Faculty Investigator Shawn Levy, PhD in 2009, was a globally recognized ser- vice laboratory that leveraged the most current genomic research technologies to comprehensively support sci- entific discovery in basic, translational, and clinical re- search. The GSL’s expertise focused on high-throughput sequencing, workflow optimization, and the develop- ment of cutting-edge analytical pipelines. The GSL rap- idly grew to an innovative and internationally recognized genomics laboratory that has supported more than 4,700 projects and processed hundreds of thousands of samples for investigators around the world. In March 2019, HudsonAlpha signed an agree- ment for Discovery Life Sciences to acquire the GSL. The transaction created HudsonAlpha Discovery, a new division of Discovery Life Sciences. The move built on the success of HudsonAlpha in developing a top-of-the- line sequencing lab by adding the global reach of Dis- covery Life Sciences and its sales force. HudsonAlpha Discovery resides solely on HudsonAlpha’s campus and continues to bring high-quality biotech jobs to the thriv- ing campus. The GSL’s sequencing and analytical pipe- lines, combined with the current global biospecimen and analytic services of its parent company, provide the highest quality clinically and scientifically annotat- ed biospecimens, gene sequencing, bioinformatics and laboratory services to the global pharma, biotechnol- ogy and diagnostics industries. Levy serves as Chief
Scientific Officer, Genomics at Discovery Life Scienc- es while continuing his role as Faculty Investigator at HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology. Since the acquisition, Levy and HudsonAlpha Discovery have continued to grow their menu of avail- able sequencing and analytical tests to meet the needs of the rapidly growing genomics community. For exam- ple, HudsonAlpha Discovery is uniquely positioned to support the growing need for large-scale, long-read sequencing in cancer, drug, and diagnostic research and development. In 2019, HudsonAlpha Discovery was named a PacBio Center for Excellence for long-read sequencing with the purchase of multiple PacBio Sequel II systems. Combining short- and long-read sequencing creates a depth and breadth to comprehen- sively understand the complex genomics driving cancer and other diseases.
Shawn Levy, PhD
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HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology
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