Expanding access to Genomics Methods through Modern Focused Ultrasonication

Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

SUMMARY The MIT BioMicro Center serves as a centralized resource for MIT researchers to access genomic and bioinformatics resources as well as expertise in related methodologies. As an integrated resource, the BioMicro Center is able to support researchers over the entire timeline of their experiment with assistance available in experimental design, sample extraction and preparation, sequencing, analysis, and deposition and data management. The facility supports over 120 laboratories each year and approximately $4.2m of funds in total research expenditure. The large diversity of research projects supported by the BioMicro Center creates unique challenges for the shared resource. While many genomics shared resources specialize in specific assays or focus on a small number of species, no specific methodology represents a disproportionate fraction of the work supported by the center. Improvements in sequencing capacity and the success of the BioMicro Center in developing novel protocols to prepare nucleic acids for sequencing has exposed a number of critical barriers that are limiting researchers at MIT, preventing them from taking full advantage of new methods as well as constraining other areas of biological and biomedical research. Foremost among these is a lack of high-throughput processing of biological samples for extraction and purification of nucleic acids. Equipment requested in this proposal, a Covaris R230 Focused Ultrasonicator, will modernize the Center’s ability to isolate biomolecules from a broad spectrum of biological sources, and to prepare those molecules for genomic, transcriptomic, and epigenomic analysis using state-of-the-art sequencing technologies. The new equipment will do so by impacting the workflows in the BioMicro Center in three ways. First, it will enable high-throughput RNAseq of degraded samples. Second, it will enhance high-throughput preparation of diverse samples including FFPE tissue. Third, novel plastics used in the instrument will improve epigenetic assay access and performance. The Covaris R230 will complement the existing portfolio of instrumentation within the BioMicro Center, leveraging that equipment to enable faculty across several research centers at MIT to routinely ask highly powered questions to address challenging biological and biomedical problems. Access to high-throughput and updated sonication will expand and enhance the capabilities of the Center to support existing research projects, improving their rigor and reproducibility, while enabling future projects to leverage the instrumentation to ask broader questions due to the ability to easily handle a larger spectrum of biospecimens.