DNA Pipelines Research and Development

DNA Pipelines Development

The DNA Pipelines Research and Development group is the entry point for new technologies to the Institute, especially sequencing instruments. The team develops new methods and procedures to maximise the efficiency, quality and throughput of all incoming machinery for the benefit all Institute researchers.

Currently the group is developing methods for the single-molecule-based PacBio instrument. This machine produces very long read lengths (5000 bases) and potential applications include sequencing bacterial and viral genomes and highly rearranged cancer genomes.

Another focus is the Oxford Nanopore minION where we are optimisng approaches and developing tools to sequence small genomes such as bacteria, yeast and viruses, as well as targeted regions from more complex genomes.

Our group has begun to support a new Institute research area: single-cell analysis. Some Single Cell Initiative members sit within our team and many Initiative experiments are performed jointly in the Cellular Genetics and Phenotyping programme and Research and Development laboratories.

We also carry out ‘semi-production’ where we deliver data to Institute research groups that require use of complicated or less robust library preparation procedures, or where smaller numbers of samples are involved. This maintains precious resources and time in production and allows Faculty to focus on maintaining high efficiency, low cost and high quality of output for the bulk of samples going through the high-throughput pipelines.

Mate-pair libraries are provided in this mode which allows de novo sequencing projects to be performed better. Similarly we employ the TRaDIS (Transposon-Directed Insertion site Sequencing) protocol to allow the pathogen teams to find essential genes and the mouse cancer researchers to pinpoint tumour-causing genes.

Our people

Core team

Photo of Abby Crackett

Abby Crackett

Advanced Research Assistant

Photo of Dr Kim Judge

Dr Kim Judge

Bioinformatician

Photo of Stacey Price-Weight

Stacey Price-Weight

Head of Technical Development - DNAP

Photo of Dr Michael Andrew Quail

Dr Michael Andrew Quail

Principal Scientist - R&D Sequencing

Photo of Lesley Shirley

Lesley Shirley

Senior Research Assistant

Previous team members

Photo of Dr Louise Aigrain

Dr Louise Aigrain

Senior Staff Scientist

Photo of Dr Tony Cox

Dr Tony Cox

Head of DNA Pipelines Development

Photo of Peter Ellis

Peter Ellis

Senior Staff Scientist

Photo of Neha Wali

Neha Wali

Advanced Research Assistant

 

Publications

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