Four MORE Chinese DNA Sequencing Startups
Yesterday I wrote about eight Chinese DNA sequencing companies. Today I found out about 4 more! So let’s very quickly review!
Salus: Salus Pro/Evo
Looks like Illumina-style SBS using an unspecified surface amplification approach. According to their website: Q30＞85%, run outputs up to 300Gb. Two instruments, the Salus Pro and Salus Evo. Seems to fit in the general MiSeq to NextSeq 1000/2000 (low to mid) space.
MeTech: UniSeq 2000
One sequencer, the UniSeq2000. Single channel optical sequencing platform. 80 to 320M reads. My guess would be that the chemistry is a single channel, probably a terminated approach (like the iSeq) but here running on a flow cell. Kind of like if Illumina made a iSeq-NextSeq hybrid. In any case, I would guess Illumina-style SBS.
One-Chip: ATGC-Micro
The One-chip ATGC-Micro is an ISFET (IonTorrent style) sequencing platform with 260,000 sensors or 4 million sensors. This is closer to the original specification of the Ion Torrent PGM instruments, than Thermos current offerings. However they state that the platform uses a “magnetic beadless sequencing method” which sounds like it uses a non-bead based surface amplification approach. This could be significantly less hassle than Ion Torrent’s emPCR.
In any case, it’s kind of an iSeq-class instrument. A class of instruments that hasn't yet performed well in the market, but I rather like!
Gene Sense: StarSeq 100
The website claims Q30>80%, up to 250M reads, 150bp reads. While this all sounds like it should be Illumina-style SBS, the rest of the website describes a semiconductor sequencing platform. Kind of sounds like an “iSeq-Ultra”:
Sounds fascinating!
Along with yesterday’s companies, this brings our total to 12 Chinese sequencing startups!
A few more brief thoughts after the break!