Prof Steve Jackson presented a great seminar today at CRI on his labs work on DNA damage repair. One of the numbers that jumped out at me was 1,000,000, that is 1M DNA damage events per cell per day.Just think, even with all that going […]
Many many years ago I started up an Affymetrix microarray core lab. One of the early presentations on the 10k genotyping arrays was an epiphany for me. It was clear from the data that copy number would be easily discernible from the technology. I also […]
Tycho Brae was recently exhumed for the second time. The astronomer died suddenly in 1601 and analysis of hair from a 1901 exhumation suggested he may have been poisoned. The recent exhumation by the University of Southern Denmark disproved this theory, however what exactly did […]
Our MiSeq has just been replaced after some performance issues and we are now getting ready to start running the upgraded version with the newest chemistry. Hopefully we’ll be getting the 10Gb+ that Illumina reported some users are achieving.In a GenomeWeb article yesterday Illumina responded […]
Many groups are working on next-generation sequencing tests for mutation profiling of tumours. There are two main approaches, amplicon sequencing (reviewed in a previous post) and in-solution capture capture (reviewed here and here); both of which only look at DNA which is not immediately limiting, […]
We have a tradition in the lab that you bring cakes in on your birthday. Home-made is always encouraged and one of my favourite party bakes is this Millionaire’s shortbread. Enjoy.Mmmm, sweeet!!!Make shortbread:200g/7oz butter115g/4oz caster sugar285g/10oz plain flourCream the butter and sugar, beat till fluffy, […]
In a few years hopefully every cancer patient in the UK will be screened for the most common somatic mutations. CRUK’s Stratified Medicine Project has already tested over 5000 patients as part of a program to roll-out more uniform testing in the NHS.There has been […]
The deadline for submitting your registration and abstract to ABGT closes tonight! As I said a few weeks ago this year the organisers are trying harder than ever to make sure the meeting reaches as wide an audience as possible. There are always grumblings from […]
I finally saw an image of a 2500 flowcell so you can stop looking at the one I mocked up based on discussions with Illumina personnel just before AGBT.One thing immediately struck me and that was how much a HiSeq 2500 flowcell looks like an […]
PCR was invented way back in 1985 and the first thermo-cyclers were released in Before this PCRs were done in tubes placed in separate water-baths. Polymerase was also added at each new cycle until someone worked out that Taq (discovered in 1976 by University of […]
