Hydrodynamic DNA Shearer 

Plaque Picker 

High Capacity Shaker 

Template Preparation Machine 

Flow Through Micro-Centrifuge 

Plasmid Preparation Machine 

Thermocycler 

Capillary Electrophoresis 

Oligonucleotide Synthesizer 

Arrayer 

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A fast, automated and massively parallel method of DNA sequencing will complete our modular, high-throughput (10000 samples/day) sequencing system. A large reduction in the cost per base is expected due to the very small sample volumes (sub-microliter) needed for Capillary Array Electrophoresis (CAE) sequencing.  

We have demonstrated a simple and efficient method for CAE sample loading with sample volumes of approxiamately 1/3 ul. To interface with this, we have also developed effective, sub-ul capillary thermocycling and sample purification protocols. 

We are now using the MegaBACE, a 96-channel CAE instrument (from Molecular Dynamics), as a testbed for production sequencing and sample purification protocols. We are also automating a prototype 1000-capillary sequencer (a collaboration with Prof. Richard Mathies at UC Berkeley) for use in production sequencing. Software, optimized for CAE data, is being developed by Silicon Genetics. 

The basecalling software is now available for download. Click on these .shar files to download: programs.shar, arclib.shar. Information and compiler for this software can be found at Andrew Conway's website.