PacBio Sequel IIe for GCB Sequencing Core

The Duke Sequencing and Genomics Technology Shared Resource (SGT) serves PIs in the biomedical fields
from Duke’s School of Medicine and all over Duke. The SGT is a ~6600 sq foot state-of-the-art facility that
houses more than $3.1M of instrumentation and has ten full time employees. For more than a decade, the
SGT consistently has provided updated, state-of-the-art genomic services. Like most laboratories, short-read
DNA/RNA sequencing is the dominant form of sequencing technology in the SGT because it is highly accurate
and cost-effective. However, short-read sequencing cannot access complex genomics regions. To complement
short-read sequencing methods, labs including the SGT use long-read sequencing technologies. As such, the
SGT provides PIs with highly accurate short Illumina sequencing reads and moderately accurate ultra-long
Oxford Nanopore sequencing reads. However, the SGT currently does not offer highly accurate long
sequencing reads produced by the PacBio Sequel IIe system. The Sequel IIe, the instrument requested in this
proposal, would be a unique resource to Duke University and academic institutes in North Carolina. PacBio
has recently overcome weaknesses that have long plagued long-read technology. These weaknesses are
inaccuracy, low-throughput production, and high cost. First HiFi libraries sequenced by the PacBio Sequel IIe
are highly accurate. Next multiple technologies developed by researchers and PacBio increase the throughput
of long-read sequencing. Additionally, the Sequel IIe has local computational abilities that reduces labor. Taken
together, the PacBio Sequel IIe provides PIs with 8x the amount of data at an overall 50% cost reduction.
Acquisition of a Sequel IIe would allow PIs to cost-effectively interrogate repetitive regions of viruses, size
discrimination of genomic regions to identify repeats correlated to disease, direct detection of recombination
events and deletion, splicing and phasing, and more. Given the requested Sequel IIe would be the only
instrument catering to the needs of academic researchers in NC, this instrument would not only benefit NIH-
funded PIs in Duke’s School of Medicine, but across all of Duke and North Carolina.