The first PacBio Library Prep and SMRT-portal workshop held in April generated plenty of SMRT sequencing libraries with inserts of up to 20 kb. The users learnt about the technical background of PacBio sequencing, common applications, the advantages of long read sequencing, and how to use the PacBio data analysis software.
The first two days a lot of time was spend on the intricacies of the library prep process and the interpretation of the intermediate QC analyses. Each participant generated a library. We also tested the new DNA shearing instrument from Diagenode, the Megaruptor, which is designed to reproducibly generate long fragments. The instrument was demonstrated by Aric Joneja, the inventor, and Sharon Squazzo from Diagenode. Thanks!!!
The third day did focus on data analysis with the SMRT-portal, getting started running SMRT-portal in the Amazon cloud, assembling of small genomes and clones, the circularization of assemblies.
The workshop was organized jointly by the UC Davis DNA Technologies and Bioinformatics cores.
A big thanks goes to our expert instructors Nicole Rapicavoli (Pacific Biosciences), Joe Fass and Adam Schaal (Bioinformatics Core), and Oanh Nguyen (DNA Technologies Core), everybody that supported the workshop (running QC after hours, organization) and our neighbors that tolerated the increased lab traffic.
