Acquisition of the Fluidigm system to accelerate functional genomics research

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): One of the most exciting advances in biomedical research is the introduction of genome scale biology, which enables researchers to gain a global view of their target's genome at high resolution. Rapid development in technologies, such as high density microarrays that enable SNP genotyping and gene expression measurement, the invention of next generation (NextGen) sequencers, and most recently single cell based technology, has greatly accelerated the integration of genome technology into other research fields and has revolutionized the world of molecular biology, genetics, and genomics. One of the biggest challenges is the increasing need for customized, high throughput follow up studies. The requested Fluidigm system (Fluidigm Corporation, San Francisco, CA) is a micro-fluidic device that offers a solution to this critical issue and will greatly accelerate research in a broad rangeof disciplines. Housed in and operated by the established Functional Genomic Core facility at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), this system will be easily accessed by a large group of researchers and utilized in many different applications, including: 1) GWAS follow up studies to identify disease causing variants and genes from large patient cohorts; 2) high throughput sample SNP genotyping; 3) identifying and cloning human disease genes by regional target capture coupled with the next generation sequencing; 4) high throughput quantitative real time RT-PCR for measuring target gene expression identified from either microarray or RNA-Seq studies; 5) single cell isolation, lysis, DNA/RNA extraction, and library preparation. As the participating PIs engage in both basic and clinical research, including three medical doctors, we believe the introduction of the Fluidigm system will have direct, strong, and immediate impact on many medically relevant fields.