Ion Torrent extends deadline for European Ion PGM Sequencer Grant Program

Ion Torrent today announced that the deadline for the Ion Personal Genome Machine (PGM™) Sequencer Grant Program in Europe has been extended to Nov. 22 to give more scientists the opportunity to win a DNA sequencer for their own labs.

To apply, researchers need only write a few hundred words describing their proposed experiment. The two scientists whose proposals best take advantage of the Ion PGM sequencer's speed, throughput and low cost will each be awarded a sequencer in the first quarter of 2011. To apply, go to www.iontorrent.com/grant-program/

As part of their grants, the winning scientists will also receive a perpetual license to the DNASTAR® SeqMan NGen assembly software and the CLC bio Genomics Workbench bioinformatics software.

The Ion PGM Sequencer Grant Program is designed to foster the development of new applications for DNA sequencing that leverage the instrument's unprecedented speed, scalability and low cost. The Ion PGM sequencer can do a run in an hour or two, and costs one-tenth the price of other sequencers to buy and to run. Priority is given to projects that result in an ongoing application that takes advantage of the Ion PGM sequencer's speed, ease of use, small footprint and low cost per run. The applicants' goal should be to address a problem that was intractable using previous technologies.

"Ion Torrent has developed the world's first semiconductor-based DNA sequencing technology, directly translating chemical information into digital data," said Dr. Jonathan Rothberg, founder, chairman and CEO of Ion Torrent. "DNA sequencing is performed with all natural nucleotides on Ion's proprietary semiconductor chips, leveraging a billion years of evolution and a trillion dollars of investment to allow unprecedented scalability, speed, and costs according to Moore's Law. I encourage every scientist in Europe who has a research project that they've always dreamed of doing, but haven't had the means to pursue, to send us a proposal."

Two grants will be awarded to European scientists under the program. The Dr. James Watson Healthcare Grant will be awarded to the outstanding proposal that addresses human health, in recognition of Dr. Watson's interest in healthcare issues. The Dr. Gordon Moore Environment Grant will be awarded to the outstanding proposal that addresses environmental, ecological or evolutionary issues, areas of study that the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation have long supported.

The grant submissions will be judged on the merit of their ideas. The judges for the competition are Dr. Rothberg, Dr. Mathias Uhlen, Dr. George Church and the Dr. Svante Paabo laboratory.

To apply for the Ion PGM grant, go to www.iontorrent.com/grant-program/