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5 Facts About the New Ion S5™ Sequencers

By 09.01.2015

Introducing the new Ion S5™ next-generation sequencing systems.

Curious to know more about the new Ion S5™ next-generation sequencing (NGS) systems? Here are 5 quick tidbits that might answer some of your questions.

1. A few minutes to go for a run

Doing repetitive lab work and looping through too many pipetting and centrifugation steps isn’t exactly a molecular biologist’s dream. The Ion S5 Systems have load-and-go consumables so you can setup a sequencing run with less than 15 minutes of hands-on time and zero pipetting steps.

The upstream sample preparation is also really simple with the Ion Chef™ System. You can go from isolated DNA to sequencing ready-chips with zero centrifugation steps and less than 45 minutes of total hands-on time.

So what do you do with your spare time in the lab? It’s perhaps better spent on interpreting those critical variants in your research.

Watch the demo for details >

2. Decisions, decisions. Do I use the Ion S5 XL system or not?

The sequencer comes in two configurations: the Ion S5 System and the Ion S5 XL System. So which one do you choose for your lab?

If your lab performs clinical research assays and you need your results within as little as 24 hours, then the Ion S5 XL system may be right for you. With its greater computing power, the Ion S5 XL system is designed for generating faster results and higher weekly throughput.

But if you are working on a grant budget in an academic or translational lab and you have to make those grant dollars stretch, then the Ion S5 System may be a better choice for your benchtop.

See detailed instrument specifications >

3. Three chips. Countless applications. Just 1 sequencer.

The Ion S5 Systems come with three chips with different outputs – the Ion 520™ Chip which gives about 3 to 5 million reads per run, the Ion 530™ Chip (~15- 20 mil reads per run) and the Ion 540™ Chip (~ 60 to 80 million reads per run). With these chip formats you don’t have to wait to batch samples to achieve cost efficiencies.

This multiple chip format also enables your lab to run multiple research applications on a single sequencer – microbial sequencing (400 bp read length), targeted sequencing and whole exome sequencing (200 bp read length), or counting applications like aneuploidy detection or transcriptome sequencing (<200 bp read length).

Download application notes >

4. It’s ready to ship. And it’s going on tour.

That’s right. No pre-ordering and endless waits. The Ion S5 and Ion S5 XL Systems are ready to ship today! After being tested by more than 10 early access and reference sites globally, the new Ion S5 Systems are ready to help take your research to the next level.

Get a quote today >

You can also experience the systems in person and see the data from early access users at an Ion World Tour seminar near you.

Sign up for Ion World Tour location near you >

5. You don’t have to be a bioinfomagician. But you can transform into one.

As Natalie says, NGS bioinformatics doesn’t have to be scary! Torrent Suite™ Software and Ion Reporter™ Software come with pre-optimized plugins for analyzing RNA-Seq data, 16S metagenomics data, trio samples, tumor-normal paired samples, copy number variations, and gene fusions, among others.

So you can generate variant research reports in a few clicks.

But our dedicated service and support teams are taking it a step further. The Ion S5 Systems also come with SmartStart packages which include specialized bioinformatics and application-based consultation to get your experiments up and running as quickly as possible.

Next-generation sequencing isn’t complicated or out of reach. We bet you’ve got more questions about the Ion S5 and Ion S5 XL systems. You can ask us here at Behind the Bench and, of course, get in touch with your friendly neighborhood Thermo Fisher Scientific rep, and find out just how simple NGS can be.

 

 

For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.

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