Workshop for genome researchers oversubscribed
massey-university
Wed Jul 14 2010 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Workshop for genome researchers oversubscribed
Wednesday, 14 July 2010, 12:42 pm
Press Release: Massey University
Workshop for genome researchers oversubscribed
College of Sciences staff members teaching scientists from throughout New Zealand how to read complex genome sequences have had to turn people away.
The Massey Genome Service ran a workshop this month in the analysis of next generation sequence analysis, a new technology that allows a researcher to determine millions of sequences at once.
Dr Lesley Collins, from the Institute of Fundamental Sciences, and Dr Patrick Biggs, from the Institute of Veterinary, Animal and Biomedical Sciences, led the workshop. They were assisted by demonstrators Barbara Schoenfeld and Bennet McComish, while Keith Whitehead and Daniel Farley helped set up the computer facilities.
Dr Collins says the workshop was oversubscribed and another may be held later in the year. The Massey service is the only scientific centre in New Zealand to have the latest high throughput sequencing technology from United States genetics and biological analysis company Illumina, which it shares with researchers. “Our sequencer can output at least 200 million sequences in one go,” Dr Collins says. “We can sequence a human genome in two weeks, rather than the two years it used to take not so long ago.”
The service has provided DNA sequencing services for more than 1000 customers in New Zealand and Australia. But there is a bottleneck in the process. “Evaluating the data is the problem,” Dr Collins says. “Until recently, researchers used to get data dribbling in as it was generated. Now they get around a terabyte of data all at once on a portable drive. It can have over a billion sequences on it. This amount of data is too much for most desktop computers, so techniques must be devised in order to see and manipulate the data. Myself and other colleagues who are skilled in bioinfomatics are being sought to make sense of this data. But people were also asking for training, so they could analyse their own data.”
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Much of this data analysis requires distinct skills, both in biology and computer science. The workshop sought to give at least an introduction to important topics. “What we’ve done is to take people through what to do when they get their data and how to check the quality of it,” she says. “Then we take them through a process called mapping. This is where you have a reference genome you know about and you align your new sequences against it. New programmes can do this quickly, and we showed people how to use a few of the most popular. If a researcher does not have a reference genome, they must assemble the information they have into one, and workshop attendees were also taught the basics of doing this type of advanced genome assembly. More advanced workshops are now being planned.”
ENDS
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