Following an overwhelming reception of CLC Genomics Workbench 1.0, CLC bio announced the release of its next major version of their flagship product: CLC Genomics Workbench 2.0. Additionally, CLC bio has taken another important step in leading next generation sequencing data analysis by becoming an Illumina Connect partner. Illumina Connect is a bioinformatics software partnership programme established by Illumina, Inc to advance data integration and analysis.

"CLC Genomics Workbench 2.0 provides scientists using Illumina's Genome Analyzer with advanced downstream analysis," says Jordan Stockton, marketing manager for Computational Biology at Illumina. "Not only is it fast, but the new version of CLC Genomics Workbench offers alignment and assembly functionality that previously required larger investments in computer hardware. With its intuitive graphical interface, this application provides a simple desktop solution to biologists who might otherwise require the assistance of a dedicated bioinformatics professional."

As an Illumina Connect partner, CLC bio has access to information in the ongoing development of Next Generation Sequencing tools, ensuring that CLC bio's solutions will be able to fully support Illumina's tools, including new releases.

Director of Scientific Software Solutions at CLC bio, Dr Roald Forsberg states, "This release is inspired by the great advances in human genetics that are being powered by Next Generation Sequencing technologies, like Illumina. Large scale projects like the Cancer Genome Project and the 1000 Genomes Project are creating a vast amount of data that will transform biomedical research. However, before the revolution in human genetics can be fully realized by the research community there is a dramatic need for bioinformatics solutions that will allow biomedical researchers to handle and analyze sequencing projects at the human genomics scale - something we aim to solve with this and upcoming releases."

CLC bio is a world leading bioinformatics solution provider, solely focusing on the development of bioinformatics: software, hardware, data analysis, and custom-designed bioinformatics algorithms.

CLC bio's mission is to be among the most innovative bioinformatics companies in the 21st century.