Life after worms: Lynx Therapeutics, Inc.

Abstract

Lynx is generating revenue by providing genomic discovery services, and it is gradually increasing its internal biology efforts. The genomics focus is drifting into proteomics, with the development of a liquid-phase 2D electrophoresis system. Meanwhile the work on the basic technology continues, including a Megaclone scheme that accomplishes a genome-wide scan for SNPs.If Lynx is interested primarily in increasing the applications of Megaclone, Brenner is clearly still attached to his original inspiration – the new, improved sequencing method. The short sequence “runs” of MPSS will not bridge repetitive sequences. But for the increasingly important task of re-sequencing, MPSS may be perfect.“What we have is workable but it is still the first stage,” he says. “My ambition would be to try to sequence 50 bases of 2 000 000 templates and to do that in 1 day. That is the production of the entire Venter factory in one machine.”“It is going to take some work to get to that,” he says. “But I think it is within reach.” If he can complete the journey from standard sequencing to his proposed high powered system it will be “like going from mainframe transistor computers all the way to integrated circuits,” he says. “Perhaps in 5–10 years time we can provide everyone with a super-sequencer on their desktop. That would be the hope.”