INTEGRATED NANO-VOLUME AUTOMATED GENOMIC WORKSTATION

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Although the complete sequencing of the 3 billion base-pair human genome is expected to be only a few years away, it is coming at a cost premium. In order to significantly reduce the cost and time of large-scale DNA sequencing it is important to reduce the usage of expensive reagent and the amount of sample handling labor. We propose to reduce the size of samples required for DNA sequencing by approximately two orders of magnitude from what is conventionally required (from 5-10 microliters to 50-100 nanoliters). This will be accomplished by performing all mixing and reactions of DNA samples within a nano-pipetter system. Integrating the nano-pipetter concept into a modified, previously developed automated workstation prototype will allow the rapid incorporation of very small scale sample automated sequencing into production operations.