Name:
A Report from the First Day of AGBT
Description:
A Report from the First Day of AGBT
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Upload Date:
2024-02-12T00:00:00.0000000
Transcript:
Language: EN.
Segment:0 .
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JONATHAN GRINSTEIN: Hello, everyone. Welcome to GEN's coverage of the 2024 edition of AGBT. The advances in genome biology and technology or AGBT conference has been the premier experience where heads of labs institutions, businesses, and other high level stakeholders come together to advance the field of genomics and drive game-changing innovation. In the past, it's been the site for some of the announcements of some of the most significant scientific advances, partnerships, and investments in genomic areas, including next gen sequencing, single-cell genomics, and spatial genomics.
JONATHAN GRINSTEIN: I'm joined by GEN's deputy editor-in-chief Julianna LeMieux. Hi, Juliana.
JULIANA LEMIEUX: Hey, Jonathan, thanks so much for calling.
JONATHAN GRINSTEIN: No, thank you for going.
JULIANA LEMIEUX: I said, thanks for calling.
JONATHAN GRINSTEIN: Oh, yeah, no, my pleasure. How's the conference been treating you this far? This is your-- how many years have you gone to AGBT?
JULIANA LEMIEUX: That's a good question, actually. I think this is maybe my fifth year coming to AGBT, say, back in the days when it was on Marco Island. And then it's moved around a little bit. But this year, we're in Orlando. And the conference is going well. I've been here for just about 24 hours. And I think I say this every year that we do these calls. So forgive me if I sound like a broken record. But it's like just I can't believe it's only been a day because there's already been so much that's happened in just between yesterday and this morning.
JONATHAN GRINSTEIN: Yeah, I can't imagine. I mean-- and that's your sweet spot, genomics, I know. So lots to take in, I bet. Well, on that note, what have been some of the most things that you've come across? Let's just start with talks. I saw you tweeted about a talk on ghost wolves, not that we need to talk about that. But it seems like just all sorts of stuff.
JULIANA LEMIEUX: We need to talk about ghost wolves. So this morning-- so there were several talks last night, the opening session. But let's just focus on this morning because-- although the talks last night were great too. This morning, the session was evolutionary genomics. And the ghost wolf talk was given by Bridget van Holt at Princeton. And this was just something-- you know I'm a microbiologist.
JULIANA LEMIEUX: I know nothing about this. But it was how they're using evolutionary genomics to not only understand the admixing that goes on between wolves and coyotes, which it does. She is focusing on a group. She started her story with this amazing story of a photo that was sent to her of an animal, a canine, that looked different to her. This is-- and she lives, eats, and sleeps this.
JULIANA LEMIEUX: So it started her on this path of this project where she was sequencing animals in that area. And long story short, but they're trying to really try to resurrect and repopulate a population of wolves. So it's a long story, but it was really, really captivating work going on a new way-- another way to use genomics. And in the same session-- and as a microbiologist, this was near and dear to my heart-- was another ancient genomics talk this time looking at pathogens that were infecting people tens of thousands of years ago, if not longer.
JULIANA LEMIEUX: And through the genomic work using ancient DNA, they can look at what killed someone. What was the infection that killed someone? She was focusing on yersinia pestis and also treponema, which causes syphilis, but also how old the skeleton was, where the people came from. So again, just telling this amazing story of using genomics in evolutionary studies. So I was-- it was a great start to the first day.
JULIANA LEMIEUX: Yeah, it was awesome.
JONATHAN GRINSTEIN: Yeah. No, it's very cool. I've never thought about. I guess it's like the meta genomics of ancient DNA samples and stuff like that.
JULIANA LEMIEUX: Oh and I should mention that the pathogen talk was given by Kirsten Bos at Max Planck, so yeah. If you're interested in learning-- people are interested in learning more about it.
JONATHAN GRINSTEIN: In terms of companies, has there any been-- has there been any big news that you've been particularly interested in? Or what are some of the companies that you've talked to so far?
JULIANA LEMIEUX: Yeah, interestingly, Jonathan, I would say it's not a year where there's tons of big launches. Well, I would have said that, actually, maybe yesterday. But yesterday at noon, Singular Genomics ran a webinar when I was in the air. But they launched a new platform. So they're in short read sequencing. And they have for years had the G4, which is their short read sequencing instrument. So they launched something that really is quite unique for all of the companies here.
JULIANA LEMIEUX: And it's a sequencer and spatial multiomics all in the same instrument. So they're calling it the G4X. And it's basically, if you have the G4, you don't need to buy a new instrument. You can just adapt your instrument to use to do spatial. So it's like the flow cell where you would put DNA, you're going to-- you can actually put in a slice of tissue.
JULIANA LEMIEUX: And through their technology, you can look at its proteome-- so it's actually morphology of the cells, proteomics, genomics, transcriptomics, all from the same slice of tissue, which is really different. That's really like unique, this is what I'll say. Now, I will say, it doesn't exist yet. They're launching. I mean, it's new.
JULIANA LEMIEUX: So it's coming. I think it's coming maybe by the end of this year, they said. But so they did launch it. They talked about it, introduced the technology. And that will really be interesting to watch how that unfolds in this market and in this community.
JONATHAN GRINSTEIN: Yeah, that's very cool. I love-- I did some work on spatial transcriptomics and specifically on the tissues from slides and stuff like that. And it's amazing when you can combine, for lack of a better term, I mean, the spatial imaging and whatnot and then the precise location of all these biomolecules. I have several questions I want to ask about that technology. But we'll wait to see what else comes out about it.
JONATHAN GRINSTEIN: Very, very cool
JULIANA LEMIEUX: I also did meet with a Dan Turner. So Dan was at Oxford Nanopore for the last more than decade. But he's just recently joined a new startup company called Enhanc3d and Enhanc3d Genomics. And they're a 3D genomics company, so really brand new. But what their focus is-- it was really interesting to talk to him about their focus, which is on really investigating more of the non-coding genome, genome folding, regulatory aspects of the genome in order to augment GUS data.
JULIANA LEMIEUX: And could be used by, say, pharma companies and drug development. Could be used by researchers, all this information. So that'll be another company that's fun to watch what they're doing.
JONATHAN GRINSTEIN: There is also some other news that kicked off the whole week. I guess, you say it's the opposite of a launch. But there are some news from NanoString. Can you give us an update on that?
JULIANA LEMIEUX: Yeah, so that's interesting, Jonathan. You're right, on Sunday night, we saw the news that NanoString had filed for bankruptcy. And what I will say is the spatial world is just incredibly competitive. And there are-- so NanoString is here. And they're here and they're presenting. And they're in their suite and very vibrant. I will say that some spatial companies are not here this year at all.
JULIANA LEMIEUX: And I will also say that the feeling is a little bit-- as compared to the last several years when there was so much money and so much going on, it's a little muted, I would say, this year compared to past years. But that doesn't mean-- I mean, everybody's still talking technology, selling their instruments. And the data going up in the talks is getting better and better every year, so yeah.
JONATHAN GRINSTEIN: Very interesting. Well, we'll have to see if that's a sign of the field or if there'll be some consolidation of companies or whatnot. So we'll definitely have to keep an eye on what's happening in the spatial arena.
JULIANA LEMIEUX: Yeah. Also Jonathan, I just want to mention one thing that I haven't mentioned, but that I just got out of to come and join you is the Ultima launch. So Ultima Genomics was a company that two years ago, so AGBT 2022, which was in June that year, well, they do what they call-- they did what they call destaffed. So they introduced their company and what their instrument was going to be. But they were still early access.
JULIANA LEMIEUX: They were still working on it. But so today was the actual launch. And they came out really strong. Gilad Almogy, the CEO got up on the stage. And they really wanted to share-- I mean, their message was, we're here, we're ready. And also, we're not what we were two years ago. So when they destaffed two years ago, there was-- I mean, it was a ton of attention on them and also a lot of question marks about some of the specs that they were putting out.
JULIANA LEMIEUX: But what he said today and so I just want to say, this just came out of the meeting. These are some of their other release. So they have a 99.4% Indel F1. They have QX60 SNP accuracy. Their runtime is 12 to 14 hours per run. The machine runs constantly. So you can pull out sample and it won't stop sequencing. They can do 20,000 genomes a year at 1 gigabase-- $1 per gigabase and $2,000 a wafer.
JULIANA LEMIEUX: And their wafers like their flow. So this information was basically saying, we're cheaper and we're faster. And so they launched. They launched, Jonathan.
JONATHAN GRINSTEIN: Did they say anything about when they'll be sending out instruments and whatnot?
JULIANA LEMIEUX: They are. I mean, they are taking orders. They are sending instruments. And so after they gave all of the company's information, they also had several academic researchers and also someone from Regeneron talking about how they've used it, what they find the strengths to be. So it was like an hour and a half long talk. But yes, they're ready to go. That was the message.
JONATHAN GRINSTEIN: Very cool. And it's a complete, I guess, suite of instrument and all the way through analysis. Or what are they offering?
JULIANA LEMIEUX: It is-- yeah, it is the whole way through, but it's only-- just to be clear, it's just one instrument. So it's the UG-100 which is their one instrument. I mean, it's so far. I don't know what's their plans are. But it's very high throughput. So they don't sell benchtop machine or anything. They don't have mid-throughput. They don't have low throughput.
JULIANA LEMIEUX: It is high throughput all the way with Ultima.
JONATHAN GRINSTEIN: Got you. Very cool. Definitely going to be keeping an eye on that. I mean, they've just brought it down to such an affordable price. And as you said, the throughput and speed is incredible. Any notable changes between this year and years past?
JULIANA LEMIEUX: Well, I would say, just what I said a little bit before we started talking about Ultima. I would say, there is a lot of excitement here. There is a lot of excitement for genomics and for the technology. I think, just like the last two years, we're just post-- the post-COVID, it was like so just bananas. I think it's like a little bit more muted compared to those past years.
JULIANA LEMIEUX: But I don't want to give the impression. I mean, there's still a ton of excitement.
JONATHAN GRINSTEIN: Would you say that kind of feeling in spatial is unique to the spatial industry? Or have you gotten any feelings of a similar sentiment in single cell or any of the other kind of subdomains of genomics? Or will that [INAUDIBLE]?
JULIANA LEMIEUX: Yeah, that's interesting because at AGBT, it seems like each year, NGS takes more of the limelight or spatial takes more of the limelight or single cell takes more of the limelight. But I would say this year, it seems to me to be pretty balanced. I think it's pretty balanced. I don't get the sense that one-- NGS is maybe a little bit more. But yeah, I think there's a lot of interest in just all of it, yeah.
JONATHAN GRINSTEIN: Yeah, Very cool. Well, I'm excited to hear more about the talks in the upcoming days. And any other news shakes out in some meetings that you'll be having, really look forward to chatting more about AGBT in the upcoming days. And Juliana, thank you so much for stopping by and sharing with us what's going on there on the floor.
JULIANA LEMIEUX: All right, thanks, Jonathan. Look forward to checking in tomorrow.
JONATHAN GRINSTEIN: All right, sounds good. Goodbye for now.
JULIANA LEMIEUX: Bye. [MUSIC PLAYING]