Illumina Introduces the Infinium^® High-Density (HD) Human1M-Duo and Human610-Quad BeadChips

Illumina, Inc. today unveiled two ground-breaking new products for DNA analysis: the Infinium HD Human1M-Duo (two samples/chip) and the Human610-Quad (four samples/chip), featuring up to 2.3 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) per BeadChip. The new Infinium HD product line, announced at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, doubles sample throughput and reduces DNA input requirements by as much as 70 percent. Additionally, the Infinium HD products offer enhanced signal discrimination and a new SNP calling algorithm. First customer shipments of the Human610-Quad and Human1M-Duo BeadChips are expected in Q1 2008 and Q2 2008, respectively.

“In 2002 we launched our first genotyping product line, which for the first time allowed researchers to screen up to 1,536 SNPs with one microarray. Today, only five years later, we are launching a single chip that contains more than 1,500 times the information,” said John Stuelpnagel, Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, and General Manager of Illumina’s Microarray Business. “The Human1M-Duo and Human610-Quad BeadChips provide our customers with significant advances, including increased sample throughput, lower input sample volume, and improvements to the Infinium assay that enhance overall system performance. Concurrent with the development of these new array products, Illumina has implemented new decoding instruments into its operations that will effectively double Illumina’s array manufacturing capacity over the next several quarters.”

Both arrays on the Human1M-Duo BeadChip contain markers for more than one million diverse genetic variants, all of which can be used for both whole-genome genotyping and copy number variation (CNV) analysis. In addition to content currently found on Illumina’s Human1M single-sample BeadChip, the new Human1M-Duo features recently identified disease-associated SNPs and intelligently selected high-density SNPs in coding regions of the genome. The Human1M-Duo also contains the best genomic coverage in the industry, providing the highest available power to detect SNPs associated with diseases and the least number of large gaps for the identification of CNVs.

The four-sample format of the Human610-Quad BeadChip provides customers with a significant increase in sample throughput and reduced handling in the lab. Built upon the content of Illumina’s broadly adopted HumanHap550 BeadChip, the Human610-Quad BeadChip has 550,000 SNPs plus an additional 60,000 genetic markers per sample. Both the Infinium HD Human1M-Duo and Human610-Quad BeadChips include high-value, proprietary CNV content developed in conjunction with deCODE genetics, only found on Illumina arrays.