03 Dec Third Wave Achieves Milestone, Delivers 200,000 SNP Assays to RIKEN In Japan
MADISON, Wis. — Third Wave Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: TWTI) today announced it delivered a total of 200,000 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) assays to RIKEN in Japan for use in various large scale genotyping projects.
Since the beginning of 2003, Third Wave has been supplying its Invader SNP assays to Dr. Yusuke Nakamura, group director of the Research Group for Personalized Medicine at RIKEN, director of the Genome Center at the University of Tokyo and leader of the Japanese portion of the HapMap Project.
Dr. Nakamura, a leading genetic researcher, is responsible for completing 25 percent of the HapMap Project, making him the largest investigator of the international HapMap Consortium. Third Wave will continue to provide Dr. Nakamura with SNP assays for his ongoing work on the initiative.
The HapMap Project is a worldwide initiative intended to create a map of common patterns of single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs. SNPs are single-based variations scattered throughout the human genome and believed to be the cause of most genetic variations from hair color to disease susceptibility. Researchers believe that mapping SNPs will assist in the understanding and analysis of human disease and drug response.