Green Super Rice Project Funded By The Chinese Government And The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Selects Affymetrix (Santa Clara, California) Axiom Genotyping Platform For Developing New Rice Varieties

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Affymetrix, Inc. (NASDAQ:AFFX) announced today that it has been selected as the genotyping supplier by the Green Super Rice project coordinated by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences as part of their effort to develop, within the next three years, at least fifteen new rice varieties and deliver them to small-hold farmers in 16 countries in Africa and Asia, including China.

“We are pleased to be able to support the goals of the Green Super Rice Project to help the rice community develop new varieties, address the needs of rice breeders, and to help achieve self-sustainable rice production and food security”

The Green Super Rice (GSR) project includes building a highly efficient genotyping platform for the large-scale molecular breeding activities within the international rice research community. The Green Super Rice project is supported by the Chinese government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and aims to increase the income of resource-limited rice producers by the development and wide-adoption of GSR varieties and corresponding crop management technology. The long-term goal of the project is to benefit at least 20 million resource-limited rice farmers and to boost rice productivity by 20% in the target countries.

“We are excited and very happy to see that the efforts of the rice community in the Green Super Rice project coming to fruition. The Green Super Rice project is the world’s first rice project that is helping lead the scientific and breeding breakthroughs achieved by the efforts of the Chinese rice scientists to release elite cultivars suitable for growth in the target countries,” stated Professor Zhikang Li, project director of GSR, Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. “We selected the Axiom genotyping platform from Affymetrix due to the platform’s capability to screen millions of markers and accurately transfer them to smaller 384HT format arrays. Such precision and fidelity is not available on any other genotyping platform.”

The genotyping array, specifically designed for the Green Super Rice project, reflects an unprecedented effort by the rice community to leverage over 20 million SNP markers that were discovered in the 3000 Rice Genomes Project. This array uses a novel SNP genotyping marker screening process to screen more than 2 million selected rice SNP markers to identify relevant and valuable markers with high accuracy and precision.

A subset of the 2 million markers identified on the rice screening genotyping array will be transferred with 100 percent accuracy onto the Axiom 384HT-format to create the new array. This new Axiom GSR Rice Array, consisting of approximately 55,000 markers, will enable ultra high-throughput processing and analysis of 384 samples simultaneously and will be used to screen thousands of samples in a highly cost-effective manner.

“We are pleased to be able to support the goals of the Green Super Rice Project to help the rice community develop new varieties, address the needs of rice breeders, and to help achieve self-sustainable rice production and food security,” said Laurent Bellon, Ph.D., senior vice president and general manager, Genotyping Business Unit at Affymetrix. “The superior array design, bioinformatics and software capabilities available with the Axiom platform are playing a key role in advancing multiple agriculture projects around the world. Affymetrix is committed to meet the agricultural community’s needs with advanced technologies that are practical, easy to use, and cost effective.”

With Affymetrix’ advanced bioinformatics and innovative design strategies, Axiom genotyping array designs routinely support genome-wide genotyping applications and accurately call the genotypes of both diploid and polyploid species.

To learn more about the Axiom genotyping platform, please visit www.affymetrix.com/agrigenotyping for applications in agrigenomics.

About Green Super Rice Project

“Green Super Rice for the Resources-Poor of Africa and Asia” is a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded rice research project with the aim to develop Green Super Rice (GSR) varieties that produce high and stable yields under low-inputs and to transfer corresponding crop management technology to the resources-poor rice farmers in fifteen countries across Africa and Asia and four Southwestern provinces in China. The GSR project’s mission is to help achieve self-sustainable rice production and food security in the target countries and regions. Find out more at http://gsr.org.cn/

About Affymetrix

Affymetrix provides leadership and support, partnering with customers in pharmaceutical, diagnostic, and biotechnology companies, as well as leading academic, government, and non-profit research institutes in their quest to use biology for a better world. More than 2,300 microarray systems have been shipped around the world and more than 94,000 peer-reviewed papers have been published citing Affymetrix technologies. Affymetrix is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and has manufacturing facilities in Cleveland, San Diego, Vienna, and Singapore. Affymetrix has about 1,100 employees and maintains sales and distribution operations worldwide. For more information about Affymetrix, please visit www.affymetrix.com

Forward-looking statements

All statements in this press release that are not historical are “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act as amended, including statements regarding Affymetrix’ “expectations,” “beliefs,” “hopes,” “intentions,” “strategies,” or the like. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially for Affymetrix from those projected. These and other risk factors are discussed in Affymetrix’ Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2014, and other SEC reports for subsequent quarterly periods.

PLEASE NOTE: Affymetrix, the Affymetrix logo, and Axiom trademarks are the property of Affymetrix, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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