Introduction to the Workshop
URLs Provided by Attendees

Abstracts

Mapping

Informatics

Sequencing

Instrumentation

Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues

Infrastructure

The electronic form of this document may be cited in the following style:
Human Genome Program, U.S. Department of Energy, DOE Human Genome Program Contractor-Grantee Workshop IV, 1994.

Abstracts scanned from text submitted for November 1994 DOE Human Genome Program Contractor-Grantee Workshop. Inaccuracies have not been corrected.

Low Cost Automated Preparation of Plasmid, Cosmid And Yeast DNA

Tuyen Nguyen, Randy F. Sivila, Joshua P. Dyer, and William P. MacConnell
MacConnell Research Corporation, San Diego, California

MacConnell Research currently manufactures and sells a low cost automated bench-top instrument that can purify up to 24 samples of plasmid DNA simultaneously in one hour at a cost of $0.50 per sample and under $8000 for the instrument. The patented instrument uses a form of agarose gel electrophoresis to purify the plasmid DNA and electroelutes in into approximately a 20 µl volume. The instrument has many advantages of other robotic and manual methods including that fact that it is: two times faster, at least six times less expensive, much smaller in size, easier to operate, less cost per sample, and results in DNA pure enough for direct use in fluorescent automated sequencing. In addition, the instrument has only one moving part associated with its purification process and does not have internal reagent reservoirs. The instrument process begins with bacterial culture which is loaded directly into a disposable cassette in the machine.

In the proposed SBIR phase I work we will develop a version of the above instrument which will simultaneously process 96 bacterial samples in 1.5 hours and will prepare cosmid, yeast and mammalian DNA in quantities of 1-5 microgram per cassette lane. The goal will be to obtain DNA of sufficient purity for direct use in automated fluorescent and manual sequencing as well as other molecular biology protocols. The proposed 96-channel instrument will purify over 1000 plasmid DNA preps per eight hour day.

This work is being supported in part by DOE SBIR Phase I Grant # DE FG 03-94ER81802 /A000, W. MacConnell P.I.