Strong cooperation | Moon Biotech will use Illumina's leading technology to build the world's largest microbial genetic element library
Recently, Moon Biotech (hereinafter referred to as "Moon Biotech"), China's leading microbiome discovery and industrialization platform, announced a cooperation with Illumina Corporation (Nasdaq: ILMN), a global leader in gene sequencing technology. The company will use Illumina's next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology to carry out China's largest microbial genome sequencing project and complete the genome sequencing of 300,000-500,000 diverse microorganisms within the next five years. This will create the world's largest microbial standardized genetic component library and agricultural trait gene library, fully realize the digitization of strain resources, and complete Munn's "Ready to use" strategy for microbial germplasm resources.
Microorganisms are the most widely distributed and diverse living organisms in nature and have been widely used in fields such as medicine, agriculture, and biomanufacturing. The essence of the microbial industry is the development, utilization and industrialization of microbial resources, as well as the mining, transformation and utilization of microbial genome information. With the maturity of next-generation sequencing technology, microbial genome mining has developed rapidly and has become an important resource treasure trove for new drug discovery and "chips" in biological agriculture and seed industries. Through genome research, we can fundamentally reveal and analyze a large number of new genes and new elements of microorganisms that have not been recognized so far, as well as the proteins with new functions they encode and a large number of new gene regulatory elements.
▲Online signing ceremony
Left: Dr. Jiang Xianzhi, founder and CEO of Moon Biotech
Right: Mr. Li Qing, Illumina Global Senior Vice President and General Manager of Greater China
As a global leader in gene sequencing, Illumina has developed a comprehensive genomics product line, including gene sequencing systems, consumables and analysis tools. With every technological breakthrough, Illumina helps scientists around the world continue to explore and understand the genetic world. Currently, more than 20,000 Illumina sequencing platforms are deployed in nearly 8,000 clinical and scientific research units around the world.
Through this cooperation, Moon Biotech will rely on Illumina's world-leading high-throughput sequencing technology to create the world's largest microbial gene component library, empowering the company's strategic development: in the biomedicine sector, the drug discovery model based on microbial functional genes will quickly screen more candidate strains for indications and accelerate the development of new pipelines of live bacteria drugs; in the bioagriculture sector, based on the exploration of active genes based on microbial diversity, we will explore new generation biotechnological traits and promote the innovation and transformation of "chips" in the seed industry. At the same time, we will build a synthetic biology platform based on genetic components, natural products and strain modification to efficiently discover, screen and produce high value-added functional microorganisms and their products, and develop and provide a new generation of microbial products for customers and partners.
Dr. Jiang Xianzhi, founder and CEO of Moon Biotech, said: "We are very pleased to cooperate with Illumina. Based on Moon Biotech's strain resource library, combined with Illumina's world-leading gene sequencing technology, we will be able to comprehensively dig and study microbial genomes, generate new insights into market pain points and needs in the fields of human health and agriculture, and provide new microbial solutions."
Zhang Dongya, Vice President of Biotechnology and Biodiversity at Moon Biotech, said: "Based on Moon Biotech's leading microbial resource library, we hope that this sincere cooperation with Illumina will analyze microbial information resources in a more comprehensive, systematic and in-depth manner, establish an influential microbial database, consolidate Moon Biotech's independently developed "Rapid Microbial Drug Discovery Platform (SMBDP)", and quickly promote the layout of agriculture and important disease pipelines."
Mr. Li Qing, Illumina's Global Senior Vice President and General Manager of Greater China: "Moon Biotech is a leading company in the field of microbial genomics in China. We are very pleased to cooperate with Moon Biotech to support the development of China's microbial genomics digitalization work and ultimately improve the health of the Chinese people."
▐ About Moon Biotech ▐
As a leading international microbiome platform technology company, Moon Biotech has established a complete microbiome industrialization technology system from discovering microorganisms, screening microorganisms, transforming microorganisms to applying microorganisms. The company has established the world's largest strain resource library with the highest biodiversity, and has discovered, preserved and identified more than 160,000 microbial strains with independent intellectual property rights. Based on in-depth microbiome research and data mining, we conduct high-throughput screening of biologically active functional microorganisms and their metabolites in response to urgent and critical social market needs (biomedicine, bioagriculture), and work with partners to provide customers with first-class microbial products and solutions.
▐ About Illumina ▐
Illumina is committed to advancing and stimulating the development of genomics to continuously improve human health. Our focus on innovation has made us a global leader in gene sequencing and chip technology, and we provide professional services to customers in scientific research, clinical and application markets around the world. Our products are widely used in life sciences, oncology, reproductive health care, agriculture and other emerging fields.