3 February 2025
As a sponsor and keynote partner, Illumina conducted two keynote speaker sessions as well as a live lounge session. On day one, Andrew Parrish from Exeter Genomics Laboratory and Emma Baple from the University of Exeter spoke about an exciting new Illumina technology launching later this year in their presentation, “Constellation: Revolutionizing the approach to rapid genome sequencing acutely unwell children,” moderated by Illumina Senior Director of Applications and Customer Enablement Sean Humphray. The Exeter scientists had enjoyed early access to the technology. On the second day, Greg Elgar, director of Sequencing R&D for Genomics England, spoke at the keynote session “The Rare Disease Multiomics program at Genomics England,” moderated by Illumina Director of Scientific Research Andrew Slatter.
An invitation-only lunch seminar featured Illumina Vice President and Head of Sequencing Chemistry R&D Jason Betley and Senior Product Marketing Manager for Europe Jennifer Stobbs as they presented “The Legends Slot: Celebrate the legacy and future of Illumina MiSeqTM with faster and simpler sequencing.” Robert Meltzer, associate principal scientist of Assay R&D at Illumina, hosted a live lounge session titled “Illumina 3' single cell RNA prep: Flexible, scalable, and affordable single-cell analysis in every lab.”
Illumina’s booth highlighted the brand-new MiSeq i100, giving customers and researchers their first opportunity to get up close to models of it, as well as models of the NextSeq 1000, NextSeq 2000, and NovaSeq X Systems. Visitors were able to speak with Illumina staff about some of the latest technology featured at the booth, including Constellation, Illumina’s new on-flow-cell library preparation solution. Located in the center of the action, the Illumina booth facilitated top-tier networking and the exchange of ideas. The team is already looking forward to next year’s festival.
