February 11, 2008 – Illumina Inc. has sequenced the genome of an anonymous African male (Yoruba from Ibadan, Nigeria), using the company’s Genome Analyzer, which analyzes microarray data.

Sequencing of this HapMap sample was conducted internally and marks the first human genome sequence generated exclusively with paired reads of 35 to 50 bases in length, the company said.

Leveraging recent system improvements that increase the throughput and improve the accuracy of the Genome Analyzer, its scientists were able to complete this project in a matter of weeks. More than 95 percent of production runs generated high-quality data with an average of over three billion bases (three Gb) per run. This achievement establishes the direct utility of Illumina’s sequencing technology for accurately sequencing large and complex genomes.

“This landmark project demonstrates that scientists can use the Genome Analyzer today to economically and rapidly complete large-scale sequencing projects including human genome sequencing,” said Jay Flatley, Illumina’s president and chief executive.

“With this project we have established both the efficacy of our technology to consistently produce large volumes of high-quality data, and the utility of our unique short-insert paired read approach for large-scale sequencing,” Flatley added.