Massively parallel sequencing has rapidly become a must-have tool of the trade in molecular biology and drug discovery research. In recent years, the cost of next generation sequencing (NGS) has declined exponentially, while throughput, accuracy and read lengths have soared, and multiple regulatory-compliant sequencing technologies have now achieved commercial success. Advances in NGS – combined with global efforts to identify and catalog genetic mutations in a range of cancer types and tumors, as well as to implement these discoveries in diagnostic, therapeutic and prognostic applications – are driving the adoption and, in the not-too-distant future, even routine use of sequencing and related techniques in clinical laboratories.
