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The GSAF is a full service sequencing core that provides both Sanger and Next Generation Sequencing services, in addition to a library prep and quality check services, open access to equipment and training.  The GSAF works directly with the bioinformatics core who can provide assist in any of your analysis needs to data storage solutions.

We are housed in

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Our Resources

The Genomic Sequencing and Analysis Facility at the University of Texas at Austin is located in room 4.102 of the MBB building, which houses the ICMB. We perform next-gen sequencing and microarray studies for UT researchers from any department and from external research entities, both public and private. We are supported by UT's Texas Institute for Drug & Diagnostic Development and the Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology.

In approximately 2,000 square feet of controlled-access laboratory space and are an experienced NGS facility. Launched in 2008, the GSAF currently processes over 10, our facility currently includes:

1. One Illumina HiSeq 2000 next-generation DNA sequencer and associated peripherals. The HiSeq can generate over 600 gigabases of sequence in an 11-day run. The GSAF has experience generating small RNA, mRNA, genomic DNA fragment, and genomic DNA large-insert mate-pair libraries for the Illumina platform.
2. One Life Technologies SOLiD V4 next-generation DNA sequencer and associated peripherals. The 5500XL can generate over 200 gigabases of sequence using the unique 2-base encoding scheme for higher accuracy. As with the HiSeq, the GSAF has experience generating small RNA, mRNA, genomic DNA fragment, and genomic DNA large-insert mate-pair libraries for the SOLiD V4. (The GSAF also owns a Life Technologies 5500 XL but does not operate it routinely).
3. One Roche 454 next-generation DNA sequencer (FLX with Titanium chemistry) and associated peripherals. The 454 FLX can generate over one million DNA sequences per day, with an average read length of over 400 base-pairs. As with the SOLiD, we can analyze one sample to great depth, or many samples in parallel to a lower depth.
4. Informatic tools and hardware sufficient for analysis of next-generation DNA sequencing data, including:
   1. A Dell PowerEdge R900 server with four, quad-core E7340 Xeon, 2.4GHz processors (16 cores total), 1066Mhz FSB, 64 GB memory, and 5.6 TB RAID-6 disk space, with BWA, Bowtie, Shrimp, SOAP, and mapreads aligners, NCBI BLAST, and R/Bioconductor, and several de novo assemblers, sequence editors, and genome browsers.
   2. The resources of Lonestar, a 22,656 core supercomputer hosted by UT’s Texas Advanced Computing Center, with 1 petabyte of scratch disk storage and 276 TB of compute-node disk storage. The GSAF has software stacks and experience appropriate to your project and both we and TACC staff can assist you in training your students to use this resource effectively.

Our Mission and Vision

Vision: The GSAF’s vision is to be a world-class genomic analysis center in terms of data quality, breadth of available methods, and productivity.

000 NGS samples per year.

Instruments in our lab:

• Illumina NovaSeq 6000 (one)
• Illumina MiSeq sequencers (three)
• Illumina NextSeq 500 sequencer (two)
• Covaris S220 and E220 Adaptive Focused Acoustic shearing devices
• Agilent BioAnalyzer 2100
• Invitrogen Qubit fluorimeter and Thermoscientific Fluoroskan
• Tecan Evo and Hamilton Nimbus
• 10x Chromium system

Lab protocols we are experienced with:

• Creation of fragment DNA sequencing libraries for all Illumina next-gen sequencers
• Creation of RNA-seq libraries from total RNA, small RNA, and immuno-precipitated RNA for Illumina next-gen sequencers
• Creation of amplicon libraries (particularly 16s and ITS regions) for the Illumina next-gen sequencers
• Human exome and custom capture with the Agilent SureSelect, Illumina TruSeq, and Nimblegen SeqCap EZ kits
• Sample and library QC using the Agilent BioAnalyzer, Picogreen and Ribogreen fluorimetry, qPCR, and spectrophotometry

Computational and software resources:

• The bioinformatcis group maintains a wide range of tools for NGS analysis and assembly and can assist with all of your analysis needs, please visit them here. 
• Need your own server or access to one of ours, here is an explanation of the Biomedical Research Computing services with instructions for getting an account.
• In addition, the GSAF uses and works with the TACC bioinformatics group, supporting tools and applications suitable to the TACC environment.
• Want to get started? Contact us
• New to Unix? Check out some Unix and Perl resources for beginners.
  
  

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Our Mission and Vision

Mission: The Genomic Sequencing and Analysis Facility mission is to provide the community with a level of technical expertise and experience that will support ongoing research projects. We aim to provide the highest quality data, develop strong customer relationships through individualized support, and provide educational opportunities that focus on the rapidly evolving field of genomics.

Vision: Support state of the art equipment and expand our services supporting research by incorporating new methodologies and techniques into the core to advance research.

Values: Our core facility is dedicated to the researchers we serve and the staff members that make the facility a success.  We promote strong collaborations with researchers always welcoming the experienced and novice scientist, focus on education opportunities for the customers we support and continuing education for our staff and operate at the highest level of integrity with full transparency. Mission: The mission of the Genome Sequencing and Analysis Facility is to provide the best quality analytical results with the best value to life science researchers.

Our People

Group photos

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Group Lunch, August 2012.

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Group Lunch, May 2011.

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Group photo, Spring 2009

Alumni