Blog
December 21, 2017
New assembly of wheat progenitor offers clues to genome evolution
Following on the heels of the first nearly complete assembly of the hexaploid bread wheat genome, scientists from the University of California, Davis, the USDA Agricultural Research Service, Johns Hopkins…
December 20, 2017
Lucky winners: Five more species to receive SMRT sequencing at Sanger Institute
Scientists championed their cases, school children sifted through species, and thousands of members of the public from around the globe took to social media to weigh in. Now the results…
December 14, 2017
A Fish Tale: Centromeres Prove Central to the Divergence of a Species
The ability to study the speciation of an animal in real-time is a dream come true for evolutionary and developmental biologists. A group of Japanese researchers has gotten that opportunity,…
December 12, 2017
Creating an Epigenetic Barcode to Accurately Characterize Microbial Communities
Unraveling the role of the microbiome in human health and environmental samples is an emerging priority in scientific study. But despite the best advances in sequencing technology, identifying the bacteria,…
December 11, 2017
Full-Length HLA Sequencing Improves Accuracy and Resolution for Community Resource
In a new publication, scientists from Anthony Nolan Research Institute and the UCL Cancer Institute present an in-depth analysis of the utility of SMRT Sequencing for Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA)…
December 7, 2017
Long-read Koala Assembly Provides Insight into Ongoing Retroviral Invasion
What can one koala tell us about an endemic that threatens the survival of its species? A great deal, it turns out. While doing a deep dive into the genome…
December 5, 2017
The antibiotic arms race: Tracking K. pneumoniae in a hospital setting
In a recent paper, scientists in Germany call for a genomic database of Klebsiella pneumoniae strains to accelerate strain identification as well as drug-resistance status. To that end, they used…
November 15, 2017
Investigating splicing of transcripts in cancer cells: SMRT Grant winner announced
We’re pleased to announce the winner of this year’s ‘Open Your Eyes to Isoform Diversity’ SMRT Grant, which was launched during the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting. The…
November 14, 2017
Fungal genome study sheds light on pathogenicity in plants
They are colonizers and killers, growing as large as 2,400 acres, leaving devastation in their wake. Armillaria fungi are the cause of root rot disease in forests, fields, parks, and vineyards…
November 7, 2017
Medicinal plants: Investigating biosynthesis with SMRT sequencing
Three recent publications report results from transcriptome studies of plants often used for medicinal purposes, all powered by SMRT Sequencing and the Iso-Seq method. The papers on ginseng, Huangqi, and…
November 6, 2017
Sanger celebrates 25 Years by generating 25 high-quality genomes of UK species
We’re pleased to be teaming up with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute on a project to celebrate their twenty-fifth anniversary: generating high-quality genome assemblies for 25 species that are integral…
November 2, 2017
With chromosome-scale resolution, draft durian genome explains smelly fruit
Scientists in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia recently reported the high-quality draft genome assembly of Durio zibethinus, a type of durian fruit commonly eaten in southeast Asia. The team used…
November 1, 2017
Iso-Seq analysis of polyploid cotton yields important discoveries for fiber breeding
Scientists at Huazhong Agricultural University in China and collaborating institutions recently published results of an Iso-Seq analysis of allotetraploid cotton. The team’s findings are expected to be particularly useful for…
October 20, 2017
ASHG 2017 Day 4: CRISPR/Cas9 Targeting and Structural Variant Calling CoLabs
A new program at ASHG this year came from the CoLaboratories, or educational theaters featuring 30-minute talks on a variety of clinical, laboratory, and data analysis topics. We were honored…
October 19, 2017
ASHG Day 2: Population and clinical genetics, plus a SMRT sequencing roadmap
The PacBio team hosted a luncheon workshop at ASHG yesterday titled “Population and Clinical Genetics Studies Using Long-read SMRT Sequencing.” Thanks to all the conference attendees who took time out…