The Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) at Virginia Tech announced that it has signed an agreement with Affymetrix Inc. (NASDAQ: AFFX) for the not-for-profit use of Affymetrix' GeneChip(R) technology. Under the terms of the new, non-exclusive agreement, the institute's Core Laboratory Facility has been granted the status of National Custom Array Center for custom microarray design, sample processing and analytical services.