Our goal is to provide NGS service for your project as if you were working directly with one of your research collaborators. We strive for a transparent and cooperative approach to NGS projects, and will communicate openly with you to find the right solution for your individual research design needs. We have decades of collective experience in molecular biology, including target capture & high-throughput sequencing, and working with difficult specimens.

In order to facilitate transparent, collaborative projects, we have opted to not offer specific guarantees for target capture & sequencing service projects, since every custom project is completely unique. In science, sometimes research projects do not go 100% according to plan. However, you will only pay for the services that we actually perform. We will give every project our individual attention, and all laboratory work is performed by hand on the bench by our team of dedicated & experienced researchers. Our goal is to provide you with the very same dedicated laboratory attention that you & your research team would give to your own work. You can be assured that we will communicate openly with you about all aspects of your project, and will not commit to a project before first discussing all the options with you.

We offer a full suite of services for next-generation sequencing projects, on both regular specimens as well as degraded specimens such ancient DNA including:

• Library preparation for Ion Torrent, Illumina, and PacBio
• Target enrichment using myBaits catalog and custom kits
• High-throughput sequencing on Ion Torrent, Illumina, and PacBio instruments

 

Fig 1. Demonstration of a range of customizable NGS library insert size options available from myReads NGS services. Arbor Biosciences can help you to choose the best average insert length appropriate for your specific myBaits target capture project, whether SNP resequencing, exon capture, UCE sequencing, or more. Depending on the quality of your DNA, the nature of your desired target regions, and your planned sequencing platform and read protocol, your project may benefit from either shorter or longer NGS library sizes.

myReads Sample Preparation Guide
myReads DNA Sample Submission Form
myReads RNA Sample Submission Form

These guidelines should be sufficient for most standard DNA or RNA extracts derived from fresh, high-quality, relatively recent specimens (e.g. DNA extracted from fresh, frozen, or alcohol-preserved tissues).

In addition, we are currently accepting most service projects for atypical or sensitive samples, including specimens with degraded or rare targets (e.g., ancient DNA, museum, archival, metagenomic, environmental, etc). However, you should first contact us with more information about your samples & research goals, so that we can determine if we are able to accept your project. We may provide you with a customized set of sample submission requirements that are tailored for your particular application.

Yes we can, however we caution that there is a higher risk of sample and/or target drop-out for low-input and/or low-quality samples. In our experience across many project types, the recommended amounts outlined in the Submission Guidelines provide the best results.

We do not have a minimum sample number, but we advise that smaller projects will have a higher per-sample cost than larger projects due to the labor required to process a batch of samples and our volume discount pricing.

Due to the inherently variable nature of target capture & high-throughput sequencing experiments (especially for new, untested, custom baitsets), we are unable to offer service guarantees related to turnaround time, unique read sequencing coverage depth, on-target percentage, and other experimental outcomes.

In order to facilitate transparent, collaborative projects, we have opted to not offer specific guarantees for service projects, since every custom project is completely unique. In science, sometimes research projects do not go 100% according to plan, and for target capture, it is very difficult to plan for specific sequencing outcomes without prior experimental data. However, you will only pay for the services that we actually perform, and we will not accept a project before discussing all the options with you.

You will receive updates and estimated timelines for completion of different stages of your project. If you are working within a specific deadline, we will certainly make every effort to accommodate that, though we cannot guarantee that it will be possible to finish your project within that window.

We would prefer that we make the libraries so that we have direct control over the uniformity and quality of the libraries going into target capture. However, yes, you can provide us directly with libraries that you make yourself. Please confer with us to make sure that we are fully aware of the type of libraries that you are using, since it is critical to choose the correct adapter-specific blocking oligos during capture and the right amplification primers after capture.

Yes, absolutely. We typically have enough material to perform multiple different types of captures from a single set of libraries that we generate. Please contact us for more information about pricing for your individual project configuration needs.

We currently do not offer DNA extraction as a standard service option. However, we do have the facilities and expertise for performing DNA extraction on both regular and degraded specimens. Therefore, we may be able to offer this for your project, depending on the circumstances. Please contact us directly to inquire about special service options.

We offer NGS service on any type of non-hazardous DNA extract, whether from high-quality or degraded specimens. However, your samples should still meet our standard submission requirements for your type of service project, including relevant negative controls where applicable. Otherwise, your samples may be unable to pass our quality controls, or your project could be delayed. Please note that currently we are not accepting projects on human ancient DNA specimens for target capture of human DNA.