Brief history of Next Generation Sequencing

Recent advancements in sequencing technology have delivered the so-called “Next Generation Sequencing" platforms (NGS), which employ massively parallel approaches to producing millions of sequence reads in a single run.

Today's NGS market is dominated by three major players: Roche, Illumina and Life Technologies.

The new era of sequencing began in 2005 when 454 Life Sciences (now part of Roche) launched its GS20 sequencer providing up to 1 million long reads in a single 10h sequencing run.

Within the next couple of years, first Illumina with its Genome Analyzer and then Applied Biosystems (now part of Life Technologies) with its SOLiD system entered the NGS arena.  Both platforms provide many more but much shorter reads compared to the Roche 454 platform.

Today, the race to develop the most powerful NGS platform is in full swing. Various sequencing chemistries and detection technologies are being explored to increase sequencing speed, maximize data output and reduce overall sequencing cost (e.g. Pacific Biosciences, Helicos Biosciences, Ion Torrent etc.).

Although all currently available systems are characterized by different technological approaches to sequencing, all of them cover the same set of NGS applications.