Cape Town, South Africa, 13 September 2023 – MGI, a company dedicated to building core tools and technology to advance life science, is proud to support The African BioGenome Project (AfricaBP), launched in 2021, by sequencing the project’s first plant species using MGI’s DNBSEQ-G400 versatile benchtop sequencer and single-tube long fragment read (stLFR) technology.*
AfricaBP, an affiliated project of the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP) and a partner of the 10,000 Plant Genomes Project (10KP), is a coordinated initiative to build capacity and infrastructure to generate, analyse, and deploy genomics data for sustainable biodiversity and agricultural development across Africa. The project currently involves 109 African scientists (87 based in Africa) and 22 organisations, aiming to sequence the genomes of 105,000 endemic species, including plants, animals, fungi, protists, and other eukaryotes.
“We are proud to see MGI’s technologies enabling the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) to sequence AfricaBP’s first plant species,” said Dr Yong Hou, General Manager of MGI Europe and Africa. “This is the first deployment of our efficient and unique stLFR technology in Africa, and we look forward to supporting more scientists in the region while advancing local genomics with our end-to-end platforms.”
“Plant genomics is increasingly important for understanding biodiversity,” said Professor Craig Kinnear, Director of the SAMRC Genomics Platform. “With MGI’s tools and SAMRC’s support, we are another step closer to creating a store of reference plant and animal genomes built in Africa, for Africa.”
Empowering African genomics with MGI technology
As part of AfricaBP, MGI’s sequencing solutions empower African researchers and policymakers in genomics, bioinformatics, biodiversity, and agriculture to produce high-quality reference genomes for endemic species. These resources will help plant and animal breeders develop more resilient and sustainable food systems, improve public health, strengthen agriculture, and inform biodiversity conservation across the continent.
Recently, AfricaBP launched the Open Institute, reported in Nature Biotechnology, as a knowledge exchange platform for genomics and bioinformatics. The Institute provides openly accessible workshops across Africa, developed in collaboration with local institutions, to foster genomics training and knowledge exchange tailored to African scientists’ needs. From 21–25 August, MGI was a main sponsor of the AfricaBP Southern Africa Open Institute Workshop in Pretoria, demonstrating stLFR and DNBSEQ technologies for high-quality reference genomes. MGI will also participate in the North Africa workshop in Morocco from 9–10 October.
“One of the major strengths of the AfricaBP Open Institute is its timeliness, coinciding with the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA) agreement,” said Dr ThankGod Echezona Ebenezer, Founder and Co-Chair of AfricaBP and Bioinformatician at the University of Cambridge. “The platform justifies investment from African science agencies, national organisations, and international partners, helping to build a federated genomics and bioinformatics infrastructure that will contribute to Africa’s bioeconomy.”
MGI’s stLFR technology is based on patented DNA co-barcoding, enabling synthetic long reads on DNBSEQ™ platforms. Launched in 2023, the stLFR Library Prep Kit overcomes short-read limitations, facilitating high-quality structural variant detection, haplotype phasing for over 99% of the human genome, de novo assembly, and other long-fragment applications. Combined with PCR-free high-throughput sequencing, it delivers complete and accurate haplotype-phased genomes at an affordable cost. To date, over 50 high-quality publications have used stLFR, including Nucleic Acids Research, Nature Ecology & Evolution, and Genome Research.
At the AfricaBP Southern Africa Open Institute Workshop, Dr Mmatshepho Phasha-Muchemenye and Raksha Toolsi presented sessions on MGI’s stLFR technology and genome sequencing exercises using the DNBSEQ-G400*.
MGI’s partnership with SAMRC began in 2019, helping establish the African Genomics Center in Cape Town, the continent’s first high-throughput genome sequencing facility. During the COVID-19 pandemic, MGI’s ATOPlex, DNBSEQ-G50, and MGISP-100 technologies supported SAMRC researchers in monitoring COVID-19 hotspots and variants in wastewater, including the first detection of the Omicron variant in Cape Town.
Products are for Research Use Only and not for use in diagnostic procedures unless specifically noted.
