Capillary DNA Sequencers for the OUHSC Core Facility

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Oklahoma University Health Sciences Center (OUHSC) Laboratory for Microbial Genomics houses a core DNA sequencing facility that is a university-established service unit, responsible for providing DNA sequencing, HLA typing, high-throughput oligonucleotide synthesis, microarray fabrication, hybridization and analysis, and bioinformatics support to the OUHSC community. Administratively, this core facility is housed within the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, chaired by Dr. John Iandolo; the department has the responsibility for budgetary and fiduciary oversight of the core facility. The institutional commitment to this core facility began in 1995, when OUHSC committed a 50% match to an NSF equipment grant that originally established the core facility, by the purchase of three Pharmacia ALF Express slab gel DNA sequencers, which are currently used for HLA typing. In the intervening years, the institution has provided support for the purchase of two ABI 377 slab gel sequencers, one ABI 3700 capillary DNA sequencer, partial support for a second ABI 3700, and additional funds for the purchase of other equipment including a Sun Enterprise 450 server with RAID array and external tape backup, a Genomic Solutions Flexsys array printer/colony picker robot, and matching funds for a Bioautomation MerMade multiplex oligonucleotide synthesizer. With other NIH and NSF grants and additional funds provided by OUHSC over the years, the university has invested well over $1 million in capital equipment for this core facility. Because of the success of this facility, the demand for DNA sequencing services on our campus has grown to the point where the existing facility cannot continue to support this demand without additional equipment. Specifically, we propose to purchase: 1) an ABI3100 16-capillary DNA sequencer to replace the ABI377 slab gel sequencers, increase throughput, cut costs, enhance data quality, and relieve the existing bottleneck on sequencing service that slows DNA sequencing for small projects, and 2) an ABI3730 48-capillary DNA sequencer, replacing the original Pharmacia ALF express sequencers to upgrade our HLA typing capacity to capillary methodology, increasing throughput and cutting costs.