It was quite an adventure for my first Trade Show. I got to see the massive amount of people that swarm to AACR to introduce, discuss, and develop new breakthroughs in cancer research! The information was overwhelming! However, from standing in the booth all day, I got to see what it takes to get people interested in doing some Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS). Sequencing has long been an important tool in the investigation of cancer causation, but NGS technologies have enable its use as a tool for diagnosis and treatment. NGS has been on the brink of expanding to the clinic for several years now. At this conference, the consensus seemed to be that we are very, very close to adopting NGS for routine use in cancer treatment. A prerequisite for the use of NGS in the clinic is CLIA certification, which we here at Edge are in the process of obtaining. Sequencing data will help in diagnosing the right treatment for mutations. Here at Edge, we strive towards being one of the top service providers for Next-Gen Sequencing.

AACR hosted a great conference. Everything was smooth from registration, to setting up booths, to the exhibiting hall, to breaking down everything.  Manning the booth all day is hard on your feet but you get to meet interesting people and showcase your company. Because AACR is a more general cancer conference, and NGS is not yet a routine facet of cancer research, there were a limited number of people who were knowledgeable about next-gen sequencing. However, we had a decent number of people who were familiar with the technology and were looking to our service for their sequencing needs. Our focus was on the Ion Torrent Ampliseq Cancer Panel.

This panel can detect 739 tumor specific mutations in 46 oncogenes down to 5% allele frequency. This process is completed within 10 days from start to finish, ending with your data on a secure, online website in which you can explore mutations, associated annotations as well as download all raw data for further analysis. You can expect up to 500X coverage of KRAS, BRAF and EGFR and 43 other oncogenes with a single run. We can do up to 8 samples on our larger chips to get the needed coverage and can do several chips a day with the same 10 day turn around. One of our scientific advisors, Dr. Samuel Levy, recently posted a guest blog about data detection of Somatic Mutations using this panel.

The fact that this conference was in Chicago didn’t hurt either. The highlight of the trip was visiting the Hancock Tower Signature Room and seeing the entire city! It was a really nice view of Chicago! I highly recommend you go there if you haven’t already.

Overall, it was a great experience for my first conference. I am looking forward to the next one and more breakthroughs in science. Thank you to all that came to our booth and visited us at AACR.

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- Steven Davis