Genomics
The Genomics area began its activity in September 2016 as a commitment of the Cabildo Insular de Tenerife and ITER to promote and develop research projects related to the development of Precision Personalised Medicine in the Canary Islands.
The activity of this area allows the development of one of ITER’s social objectives, in particular, the creation of infrastructures, the training of scientific and technical personnel and the exploitation of the company’s resources in the field of Biotechnology as an industrial and commercial activity. To this end, the Genomics area has a Molecular Biology laboratory, equipped with new generation DNA sequencers and all the auxiliary instrumentation necessary for the preparation of nucleic acid libraries.
En estas modernas instalaciones es posible la secuenciación masiva de ácidos nucleicos empleando diversas metodologías como son la secuenciación de genomas completos (WGS), secuenciación de exomas completos (WES), transcriptómica (RNA-Seq), epigenómica (MethylSeq), genómica funcional (ChIP-Seq), etc. Además del empleo de protocolos de secuenciación estándar como los citados, el laboratorio de Genómica de ITER puede adaptar y configurar protocolos específicos para proyectos singulares apoyándose en su laboratorio de Biología Molecular.
The Genomics team is made up of scientific and technical staff specialised in Life Sciences, Biomedicine, Computer Science and Computer Engineering, among others.
The network of collaborators includes academic and hospital institutions, as well as national and international scientific entities with which collaboration agreements have been established to promote R&D&I projects in various fields where Genomics offers innovative and efficient solutions.
The Genomics area does not perform on-demand sequencing for individuals. However, due to its dual vocation of scientific research and service, it collaborates with the aforementioned institutions and entities in the design of adapted solutions, experiments, mass sequencing of nucleic acids, data processing and interpretation of the results.
All this activity is channelled through various backbone projects, among which the development of the Massive Genomic Data Analysis Service, at the request of the Cabildo Insular de Tenerife, stands out for its relevance and general interest, which has multiple applications in various fields. In addition to those already mentioned, work is being carried out on lines of research and development in population genetics and biodiversity, prevalent diseases, the study of somatic variation, the application of new third-generation mass sequencing technologies, and the creation of an ecosystem of bioinformatics tools for processing BigData, among others.
