CLC bio releases groundbreaking whole-genome de novo assembler

Today, CLC bio released a groundbreaking whole-genome de novo assembler that will assemble genomes of any size, including human and plant genomes on a single workstation computer. Equally important, CLC bio’s de novo assembler is the first assembler that enables molecular biologists to set up, adjust, and run their large genome de novo assemblies through a graphical user-interface.

Director of Scientific Software Development at CLC bio, Dr. Roald Forsberg, states: “Modest hardware requirements and the first user-friendly graphical interface for whole genome de novo assemblies, will democratize this technology. By empowering scientists around the world with this technology, the number and size of de novo assembly projects will increase. In accordance with our cross-platform strategy, we will also support all the upcoming Third Generation Sequencing technologies, so our customers can reap the full benefits of all the exciting technological advances of the future.”

CLC bio’s new de novo assembler solves four of the major de novo assembly challenges that are experienced by the scientific community today:

• The challenge of user-friendliness: None of the current de novo assembly applications for large genomes works through a graphical user-interface. CLC bio’s de novo assembler comes with both an intuitive user-friendly graphical user-interface as well as a powerful command-line interface.
• The challenge of memory requirements: Today’s de novo assembly software requires a total of more than 300 GB of RAM for large genome assemblies. CLC bio’s de novo assembler can assemble the same datasets on a single workstation computer with only 48 GB of RAM.
• The challenge of speed: Existing de novo assembly software packages are very CPU intensive and easily take days assembling large whole genome datasets. CLC bio’s de novo assembler is up to 50 times faster than existing packages and finishes the same datasets in just hours.
• The challenge of hybrid assemblies: No other de novo assembly package can mix datasets from different sequencing technologies. CLC bio’s de novo assembler handles and combines all data formats, whether they are generated by Illumina, SOLiD, Roche 454, Helicos, or Sanger sequencing instruments.