New England Biolabs (NEB) will present current developments in sample preparation for Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) at this year’s Advances in Genome Biology and Technology (AGBT) Meeting. As a Bronze Sponsor of the conference, the company will showcase advancements in the NEBNext portfolio, including improvements in RNA sequencing, long-read sequencing, enzymatic methyl sequencing (EM-seq), and workflows for infectious disease surveillance.
The meeting will take place from February 23–26, 2026, at the Signia by Hilton Bonnet Creek Hotel in Orlando, Florida. NEB will host presentations, meetings, and scientific talks in the Sarasota Suite.
Highlights include the introduction of NEBNext UltraShear Long Read – a new enzymatic method for fragmenting DNA into the 2–30 kilobase range. The technology is expected to offer workflow advantages, higher sequencing efficiency, and the ability for direct methylation detection.
Additionally, data will be presented on the recently introduced NEBNext Low-bias Small RNA Library Prep Kit. The kit enables a one-day, gel-free workflow with a proprietary approach for unbiased adapter ligation and is suitable for sequencing miRNA and small RNAs across a broad range of applications.
NEB will also present two scientific posters: one on agnostic pathogen detection in wastewater and another on the successful application of NEBNext enzymatic methyl sequencing to highly degraded DNA samples.
In the Bronze Sponsor Workshop, Dr. Bernard Lam from the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research will speak on Wednesday, February 25, at 2:20 p.m. about a cross-platform evaluation of whole-genome methyl sequencing in research and clinical samples.
Additional talks in the Sarasota Suite include:
- Tuesday, February 24, 8:00 a.m.: NEBNext UltraShear Long Read – novel time-dependent enzymatic DNA fragmentation for long-read sequencing (Brittany S. Sexton, NEB, and Neeman Mohibullah, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center).
- Wednesday, February 25, 8:00 a.m.: Accurate representation of small non-coding RNAs from diverse sample types (Louise Williams, NEB).
In addition, posters will be shown on topics such as methylation/epigenetics (including variant calling and EM-seq v2 with target enrichment), clinical and sensitive applications (cfRNA/DNA, Ultra II/UltraExpress, UltraShear on HQ/FFPE samples), simplified library prep (UltraExpress with low input, low-bias small RNA), and new solutions such as UltraShear Long Read, new polymerases, direct RNA sequencing, and NicE-seq.
Keerthana Krishnan, Associate Director of NGS Product Development at NEB, emphasized the importance of the event: AGBT offers the opportunity to showcase technological advancements and engage directly with scientists pushing the boundaries of sequencing technologies.
NEB also highlights its new Monarch nucleic acid purification solutions, including the Monarch Mag Cell-free DNA Extraction Kit for scalable and reproducible cfDNA isolation from biofluids.
More information about the NEBNext portfolio can be found at www.NEBNext.com.
