GENNET, BGI enter collaborative agreement for non-invasive fetal trisomy test

Oct 17 2012

BGI, the world's largest genomics organization, and GENNET, a center for genetics, fetal medicine and assisted reproduction, jointly announced that they have entered a collaborative agreement on non-invasive fetal trisomy (NIFTY) test with the aim to significantly improve reproductive health in Czech and Slovak Republic. The agreement was signed by Dr. Ning Li, Director of BGI Europe and Ing. Milos Andel, Executive Officer from GENNET.

Fetal chromosomal aneuploidy disease is one of the most common birth defects. Unfortunately, there is no effective method to cure this disease, but the key is to prevent by prenatal testing. NIFTY is a blood-based aneuploidy test that analyzes fetal DNA in maternal blood to detect chromosomal Trisomy by next-generation sequencing. It is a non-invasive screening test requiring only a 5ml blood sample from pregnant women at 12 weeks or later, and it provides highly accurate and reliable prenatal test results for Trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome), Trisomy 13 (Patau Syndrome), and Trisomy 18 (Edwards Syndrome).

Under the partnership, GENNET will offer the regional knowledge and distribution network. BGI will provide the genomic platform as well as sequencing and bioinformatics expertise. The combination of two organizations' advantages will efficiently detect fetal chromosomal abnormalities in pregnant women and improve reproductive health in Czech and Slovak Republic and other European countries.

Ing. Milos Andel said, "We are looking forward to cooperate with the largest genomics center in the world. We are pleased that we will cooperate with BGI on NIFTY project which will change the future of prenatal testing. "

Regarding this exciting partnership in Czech and Slovak Republic, Ning Li said, "We are delighted to partner with GENNET. BGI is offering NIFTY test with breakthroughs in bioinformatics analysis. GENNET's long experience in fetal medicine makes it a natural choice for us to cooperate here in Czech Republic. We are looking forward to having more collaboration together on medical genomics and medical diagnostics in the near future."

Source: BGI Shenzhen