Research FacilitiesGenomics Laboratory

Conventional Sequencing
The facility caters for small DNA sequencing projects with its automated fluorescent DNA sequencing and genotyping instrument ABI3730xl. The laboratory also houses real-time PCR sequence detection instruments, ABI 7500Fast and 7900HT.

High throughput sequencing
The facility has two Illumina HiSeq2000 sequencers for whole genome sequencing analysis. Each machine can sequence two flow cells in parallel and generate up to 300 Gigabases of sequence per flow cell in a 12-day run. The HiSeq2000 is well suited for large scale sequencing projects and applications like ChIP-seq, RNA-seq, whole genome re-sequencing, targeted re-sequencing, methylome analysis.

A new Illumina MiSeq sequencer is also up and running since January 2012 and is used for smaller scale sequencing projects like re-sequencing of small genomes, amplicon sequencing, miRNA-seq as well as for library validation prior to sequencing on the HiSeq. The MiSeq generates 1-2 Gigabases of sequence per run in 24 hours.

Training and support in library preparation and validation is available and data processing, sequence alignment and further analyses are performed by the facility bioinformaticians.

Microarrays
The facility supports Affymetrix GeneChip technology as well as Agilent and Nimblegen arrays. The facility offers a hybridisation and scanning service on these platforms and full technical support for sample preparation.

Bioinformatics
Two facility bioinformaticians provide specialised advice and support for microarray and sequencing projects. They work closely with the IT staff and Bioinformaticians in the various research groups at the CSC and Imperial and with the Imperial College Bioinformatics Support Service and Supercomputer Centre for data analysis and long term data archiving.

Open access equipment
The facility provides open access to specific equipment like Covaris shearing for sequencing library preparation, Pippin Prep for library size selection, Bioanalyser for RNA and DNA quality assessment, Nanodrop and Qubit for nucleic acid quantification, Fluidigm system for high throughput amplicon generation, TissueLyser for nucleic acid extraction, and real-time PCR machines (ABI 7500Fast and 7900HT).

• High throughput sequencing project form