Developments

In recent years we have witnessed an exciting explosion of technologies and applications which has attracted more researchers to utilize genomics platforms. In order to constantly provide and support cutting-edge technology a Process Improvement initiative was implemented within the Oxford Genomics Centre. The goal was twofold:

• To identify methodologies or technologies that can expand our portfolio of supported applications and
• To improve the current performance of the group by being faster, cheaper and delivering better quality data.

The challenge of increased data output per sequencing lane has led to the development of multiplexing (up to 96 samples in one lane) which in turn has increased the number of genomic libraries processed. We have evaluated and modified each step of the workflow to reduce library preparation costs and maximize the number of samples produced from every kit. Our target is to reduce costs even further and new strategies are under investigation and evaluation.

To increase throughput a key aspect of our workflow has been the use of Beckman liquid handlers, of which the group has three. A significant effort has been put into implementing automation for different workflows.

• Library preparation was custom automated for: gDNA, ChIP and mRNA which represent the majority of library types for sequencing (~85%).
• Further automation was developed for QC and quantification steps which has reliably increased accuracy and reduced hands-on time.