SeraCare Life Sciences Develops Industry's First Multiplexed Cardiomyopathy Reference Material

MILFORD, Mass., Oct. 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- SeraCare Life Sciences, a manufacturer and leading partner to global in vitro diagnostics manufacturers and clinical laboratories, is announcing the launch of the industry's first multiplexed reference material for inherited disease testing by next-generation sequencing (NGS) at the 2016 ASHG Annual Meeting in Vancouver. The Seraseq™ Inherited Cardiomyopathy Reference Material was developed in collaboration with Birgit Funke, PhD, FACMG, Director of Clinical Research and Development at the Partners HealthCare Laboratory for Molecular Medicine (LMM), capitalizing on her expertise in genetic testing for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. This work will be published in the November 2016 issue of The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a genetic cardiovascular disease that is characterized by unusual thickening of the heart muscle which can lead to sudden cardiac failure or abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias). HCM represents a class of disorders where the combination of disease prevalence and genetic heterogeneity (resulting in the need to sequence many genes) has led to the rapid adoption of NGS-based gene panels. 

As targeted inherited disease panels continue to expand, there is growing demand for reference materials that cover a broad range of not only prevalent pathogenic variants, but also difficult-to-detect variants (such as large insertion/deletions) to expedite test development, perform comprehensive analytical validation, as well as to monitor routine assay performance. However, the traditional practice of using genomic reference materials (e.g. NA12878) and remnant patient samples that cover variants of interest can pose challenges for diagnostic laboratories as informative patient samples are often not publicly available and getting access to  adequate numbers of samples can end up being time consuming and/or costly. Creating multiplexed reference samples that are tailored to specific disorders fills this void, especially in an environment of growing regulatory oversight.

The Seraseq Cardiomyopathy Reference Material combines ten common pathogenic and/or technically challenging variants in a single reference sample. The variants were chosen based on a careful review of clinical sequencing data obtained over ten years at LMM. Further, the final product configuration was determined based on proof-of-concept evaluation of two different design concepts and performance that was comparable to patient-derived data. This product combines HCM variants in a well-characterized genomic background at a 50% target allele frequency that can be used for assay development, analytical validation, or routine quality control. 

"We are very excited to have developed, in collaboration with Dr. Birgit Funke of LMM, the first-of-a-kind multiplexed reference material for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy to expedite the adoption and accurate use of NGS-based inherited disease panels," said Russell Garlick, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer at SeraCare. "Using this technology, genomics laboratories around the world are able to characterize and monitor their assays using these highly multiplexed, rare, but clinically relevant variants in their assays. We are pleased our innovative Seraseq Cardiomyopathy Reference Material can provide the assurance in the results that LMM and others require, while also enabling them to monitor long-term performance that is simply not possible using remnant specimens or engineered cell lines."

About Partners HealthCare

Partners HealthCare is an integrated health system founded by Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital. In addition to its two academic medical centers, the Partners system includes community and specialty hospitals, a managed care organization, community health centers, a physician network, home health and long-term care services, and other health-related entities. Partners HealthCare is one of the nation's leading biomedical research organizations and a principal teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. Partners HealthCare is a non-profit organization.

About SeraCare Life Sciences Inc.

SeraCare enables the promise of precision medicine by advancing the understanding of disease and providing assurance of the diagnostic result. Our innovative tools and technologies not only provide assurance of the safe, effective, and accurate performance of diagnostic assays but also establish a framework for regulating, compiling, and interpreting data from precision diagnostics. Our portfolio includes a broad range of products such as quality control technologies, disease-state specimens and tissues for research and development, processed biological materials, and immunoassay reagents. For more information, please visit www.seracare.com and follow SeraCare on Twitter (@SeraCare).

Company Contact:
Sam Blier
SeraCare Life Sciences, Inc.
508.244.6426
[email protected]
www.seracare.com

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SOURCE SeraCare Life Sciences, Inc.

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