Fluidigm Corporation has announced that the Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées Genomic Platform - Genotoul INRA core facility is now providing a wide range of services on a BioMark^TM System for Genetic Analysis to a diverse range of French researchers.  These services include SNP genotyping, gene expression analysis and digital PCR quantification of DNA libraries for next-generation sequencing. The INRA has been validating the performance of the system on several projects over the past year.

"We have used the BioMark system for many different applications and have found the results to be very robust and comparable to those obtained using classical techniques. However, this platform allows us to provide researchers with a lot more high-quality data, in a fraction of the time, at a very affordable cost. In addition, we were the first facility to offer Fluidigm technology in France and are delighted that we are seeing the demand for this technology increasing nicely," said Denis Milan, group leader of the Department of Animal Genetics at INRA.

The INRA Genomic Platform core facility offers researchers access to the world's most-advanced life science tools through the organization's service center, which is also open to scientists from other institutes. Many species, such as human, pig, mouse, rat, chicken, Macaque, and many more, have been studied at this facility.

Fluidigm's BioMark system has already been used in large-scale projects such as the European Commission Program Diogenes (Diet, Obesity and Genes; www.diogenes-eu.org). "We recently analyzed the expression of 288 genes in 1500 adipose tissue samples from obese subjects undergoing dietary interventions. We are confident that this approach will be a major step forward in the characterization of biomarkers of obesity complications" said Dominique Langin, Head of the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) and Paul Sabatier University Obesity Research Laboratory.

"We are delighted and honored that INRA is using our BioMark System and Fluidigm chips to bring gene expression, genotyping and digital PCR capabilities to European researchers. Having an organization with the worldwide reputation of the Genotoul INRA core facility (National Institute of Agricultural Research) capitalizing on the versatility and capabilities of our integrated fluidic circuit (IFC) technology affords Fluidigm a great opportunity to demonstrate how much value we can bring to a wide range of research," said Gajus Worthington, president and chief executive officer, Fluidigm.

Fluidigm's BioMark system is a highly versatile, high-throughput, high-performance genetic analysis platform.  It enables a variety of applications, including disease tissue profiling, single cell gene expression, ultra-high throughput genotyping, and absolute quantitation via digital PCR. The system is equipped with features that significantly enhance throughput, reduce costs by using microscopic amounts of expensive reagents, and lessen hands-on time by having the chip automate the liquid-handling steps. Fluidigm's 96.96 Dynamic Array^TM IFCs can provide researchers with 9,216 real-time data point reads, or 24 times the number of reads provided by a transitional single 384-well plate, in the same amount of time.

INRA carries out mission-oriented research for high-quality and healthy foods, competitive and sustainable agriculture and nutrition, the environment and land use facing the world of agriculture and agronomics today. Challenges such as climate change, human nutrition, competition between food and non-food crops, the exhaustion of fossil resources and appropriate land management put agronomists in a position to generate compatible economic, social and environmental development. For more information, please visit http://genomique.genotoul.fr/index.php?id=23&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=169&tx_ttnews[backPid]=23&cHash=4acdb0a87e

Fluidigm develops, manufactures and markets proprietary Integrated Fluidic Circuit (IFC) systems that significantly improve productivity in life science research. Fluidigm's IFCs enable the simultaneous performance of thousands of sophisticated biochemical measurements in extremely minute volumes. These "integrated circuits for biology" are made possible by miniaturizing and integrating liquid handling components on a single microfluidic device. Fluidigm's systems, consisting of instrumentation, software and chips, increase throughput, decrease costs and enhance sensitivity compared to conventional laboratory systems. For more information, please visit www.fluidigm.com

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