International Symposium on LifeChips 2006

Capturing all Common Human Variation on a Single Microarray
Illumina has developed a flexible microarray platform based on beads in wells. The platform is used for a variety of highly multiplexed assays, including gene expression, genotyping and DNA methylation. Recently we developed a single microarray chip that can be used to analyze all common variation in the human genome. Genotypes for over 4 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are now available from the International HapMap Project. We developed a panel of >500,000 tag SNPs from the HapMap data that captures the common variation in the human genome. We use a novel whole genome genotyping assay to interrogate this large number of SNPs efficiently and accurately on a single BeadChip. This Infinium™ assay uses a single tube, whole genome amplification step, array hybridization capture, and an array-based primer extension reaction to directly score SNPs on the array. The array and assay method are being used by researchers around the world to genotype tens of thousands of patient samples in efforts to discover the genetic basis of common diseases such as cancers, arthritis, and diabetes.

Biography
Dr. David L. Barker is Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer at Illumina, Inc., in San Diego, California. Dr. Barker served from 1998 to 2000 as Vice President and Chief Science Advisor at Amersham Biosciences, now part of General Electric. From 1988 to 1998, Dr. Barker held senior positions, including Vice President of Research and Business Development, at Molecular Dynamics, Inc., until the acquisition of Molecular Dynamics by Amersham. In his academic career, Dr. Barker conducted interdisciplinary research in neurobiology as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, Assistant Professor at the University of Oregon and Associate Professor at Oregon State University. Dr. Barker holds a BS with honors in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology and a PhD in Biochemistry from Brandeis University.