Tweet
The research presented at ASHG 2024 was not the only thing exciting about the show. Several companies took this time to release new products, announce updates, and showcase their latest technologies. This article covers the highlights from the industry side of the conference.
Pacific Biosciences (PacBio)
The biggest announcement from the conference was PacBio’s release of their new benchtop sequencer, Vega. The instrument was announced at their party where they also celebrated with a performance by One Republic. Importantly, the Vega system is priced at $169,000, which brings HiFi long-read sequencing technology to a more accessible scale for laboratories. It supports numerous applications, and Vega’s compatibility with PacBio’s HiFi ecosystem allows researchers to utilize existing tools for library prep and data analysis.
PacBio also released a new SPRQ chemistry for Revio systems that significantly reduces DNA input requirements to 500 ng. It enables broader sample types and improves sequencing yield by 33% per SMRT Cell. This increase allows each Revio instrument to sequence up to 2,500 human genomes annually at a cost of less than $500 per genome. Enhanced multiomics capabilities were also announced at the start of the meeting, which include improved DNA methylation calling, with new software supporting 5mC and 6mA markers.
Illumina
Although Illumina didn't launch a new sequencer at the meeting (having introduced the MiSeq i100 just last month), they still made several significant announcements. Illumina's CTO unveiled details on the upcoming constellation mapped read technology, designed to streamline whole-genome workflows, provide long-range data, and enhance structural variant resolution.
Kamel Lahouel from TGen gave an update on Illumina’s Protein Prep solution, developed with Standard BioTools. He demonstrated its ability to quantify over 6,000 proteins with NovaSeq compatibility for multiomics. Illumina also gave talks highlighting their expanding epigenetic, multiomic, and analysis offerings. Reps from the company assured us that the talks and information they presented will be available as webinars or resources in the coming days.
Complete Genomics
Complete Genomics showcased its expanded DNBSEQ-T7 applications for multi-omics, single-cell, and spatial omics research with various talks throughout the conference.The group also shared newer products, including the DNBSEQ-G400 FluoXpert for spatial protein detection, the DNBSEQ-G800 for longer read lengths, and the DNBelab-D4 sample prep system for streamlined library preparation. In addition, they featured the CompleteWGS workflow for comprehensive whole-genome sequencing and launched the Spatial Xcellerator grant program to support U.S. researchers in spatial transcriptomics projects.
Ultima Genomics
There weren’t any major announcements from Ultima at this event. However, their team has noticeably expanded and Ultima continued to show the utility of their UG 100 instrument through commercial partnerships and academic applications,
Element Biosciences
Coming off the success of their “Beyond” event last month, Element spent the conference highlighting their novel AVITI24 sequencer. They also shared updates and applications of their Trinity targeted sequencing workflow.
Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT)
The ONT group didn’t have any new releases at the meeting, but they did present promising data from new flow cells that significantly increase sequencing output and enable a wider range of insert sizes. ONT also reviewed the power of their multiomics solutions and teased improvements to their Q-Line sequencing portfolio for 2025.
Singular Genomics
Singular Genomics focused on showing off their G4X platform during the conference. They also presented data generated on the instrument to highlight its in situ multiomic capabilities.
Final Thoughts
We also saw some great activity from sequencing-adjacent companies like Yourgene Health, Nabsys, Volta Labs, and AlidaBio. Their core technologies look promising and we’re excited to see their development over the next year. If we missed any technology updates, announcements, or exciting use cases, please share them with the community below.