Centro Nacional de Analisis Genómico, Barcelona, Spain

Description of organisation

Centro Nacional de Analisis Genómico (CNAG) was created with support from the Spanish and the Catalan governments. However, CNAG does not have a legal status yet. Therefore, all its research projects are been requested and carrying out under Parc Cientific de Barcelona (PCB). CNAG is located in Barcelona and was created in September 2009. It is situated within the PCB that is one of the largest research clusters in Life Science in Southern Europe. It hosts 4 research institutes with more than 70 research groups, 75 companies, an incubator for biotechnology companies, and a wide range of research support technology. CNAG vocation is to carry out large-scale projects in DNA sequence analysis in collaboration with the Catalan, Spanish, European and International Research Community. The CNAG covers a range of capabilities including whole genome de novo sequencing, whole genome re-sequencing, targeted re-sequencing, profiling of mRNAs or small RNAs (RNA-Seq), localization of DNA or RNA binding sites (ChIP-Seq), epigenome sequencing and variant validation. We currently have thirteen 2nd generation DNA sequencers (Genome Analyzer IIx and Illumina HiSeq2000) that produce more than 70 Gbases of sequencing data per day. The target of the CNAG is to increase this capacity to more 200 Gbases per day by replacing all sequencing equipment with Illumina HiSeq2000 instruments, becoming one of the top 5 centers in Europe in terms of 2nd generation sequencing capacity. CNAG's first project is within the framework of the Spanish Contribution to the International Cancer Genome Consortium on Chronic Lymphatic Leukemia. CNAG occupies approximately 1,200 square meters and has a headcount of more than 35 in staff. Current staff includes designated teams for sample management, library preparation, sequencing production and data processing that secure seamless operation. The sequencing operation is supported by an extensive informatics infrastructure: 1.2 petabyte of data storage, over 850 cores of computing, an internal 10 Gb/s network and multiple 10 Gb/s direct physical connections to the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) which has over 10.000 compute cores.

Previous experience

The CNAG is a young institution with scientists that have extensive experience in large-scale projects. Ivo Gut is the coordinator of READNA and has participated in many EU-funded projects such as MolPage, MolTools, STAR, Gabriel, EURATOOLS, EvA and Sybaris. CNAG is currently involved in the International Cancer Genome Consortium and the EU project ESGI, AirPROM and Geuvadis.

Profile of staff members:

CNAG is directed by Dr. Ivo Gut who prior to this engagement was associate director of the CEA/Centre National de Genotypage in France where he executed many large-scale genome-wide genotyping and sequencing projects. Dr. Mònica Bayés has broad expertise in genomics and is in charge of external collaborations (Programme Manager). Dr. Gut is also joined by several of his previous collaborators such as Dr. Marta Gut (Head of Sequencing), Julie Blanc (Manager, sample preparation) and Dr. Simon Heath (Head of Bioinformatics and Statistics).

Webpage

Centro Nacional de Analisis Genómico

Recent publications relevant to the project:

1. Moffatt MF, Gut IG, Demenais F et al (Including Heath S). A large-scale, consortium-based genomewide association study of asthma. N Engl J Med. 2010 Sep 23;363(13):1211-21.

2. International Cancer Genome Consortium (including Bayés M, Gut I, Heath S and Gut M). International network of cancer genome projects. Nature. 2010 Apr 15;464(7291):993-8.

3. Imielinski M, Baldassano RN, Griffiths A et al (including Gut I and Heath S). Common variants at five new loci associated with early-onset inflammatory bowel disease. Nat Genet. 2009 Dec;41(12):1335-40.

4. Bishop DT, Demenais F, Iles MM et al (including Gut I). Genome-wide association study identifies three loci associated with melanoma risk. Nat Genet. 2009 Aug;41(8):920-5.

5. Lambert JC, Heath S, Even G et al (including Gut I). Genome-wide association study identifies variants at CLU and CR1 associated with Alzheimer's disease. Nat Genet. 2009 Oct;41(10):1094-9.