The challenges of bringing on new technology feel surprisingly similar regardless of career stage or field. Grad students, bioinformaticians, PIs, and professionals running core facilities all want to make confident decisions and build reliable workflows so that their research can succeed.
To make this easier for everyone who’s new to long-read sequencing and HiFi technology, we’ve created a set of Sequencing 101 materials that offer clear, practical guidance for people at every career stage. Alongside these four tailored primers, there’s also a new grant support resource with proof points you need to boost your funding applications. Together, these are a great “crash course” for anyone wanting to understand the essentials and hit the ground running with HiFi.
Here’s a breakdown of the materials you can download depending on your role.
For the grad student wanting to stand out
When you’re early in your career, the weight of getting science ‘right’ is heavy from day one. The data you gather today will support the papers, grants, and job opportunities of the future, and the Seq 101 guide is here to help. It introduces long-read sequencing, explains how HiFi captures the variants your research relies on, and corrects common sequencing misconceptions so that you can trust the information you are working with from the start.
You’ll learn how to read the metrics that matter, how to choose tools that give you a competitive edge, and how to generate data that journals trust. If you want to establish a solid technical foundation while differentiating yourself from your peers, the Seq 101 guide is the first place to start.
For the bioinformatician looking for cleaner, faster analysis
If you’re on the analysis side of things, you know that turning raw data into results all relies on the quality of the data you start with. The bioinformatics guide emphasizes what many discover after switching to HiFi reads: once you have clean, noise-free, analysis-ready data, you can’t imagine working without it.
This resource walks you through PacBio-supported, community-vetted pipelines that streamline analysis and reduce troubleshooting. It also explains how transitioning from short reads is easier than expected because the software ecosystem around HiFi is stable and well documented. You’ll get an overview of the software powering long-read sequencing, including how it extracts more complete biological meaning from every dataset. If you want to sharpen your skill set and reduce friction in your day-to-day work, this guidebook will be a valuable resource.
For the PI building a lab designed to last
The next resource is for PIs. We know that time is your scarcest resource, and data quality has a direct impact on time-to-publish, funding success, and your ability to grow a strong team. The PI-focused guide offers a strategic look at why early adoption pays off, built from the perspective of researchers who have already made the transition. As one assistant professor put it,
“With our short-read workflow I was publishing six or seven papers per year, and now with HiFi sequencing I’m publishing fifteen, because I’m able to skip months of struggling with data.”
This booklet helps demystify key sequencing metrics, showing how accuracy and read length drive better downstream results. It dives deep into the actual coverage depth needed for reliable HiFi data and how this translates into more cost-efficient sequencing without compromising quality. If you’re thinking carefully about how sequencing fits into your long-term research plans, this guide outlines the tools, workflows, and decision points that will set your lab up for long-term success.
For the core director preparing for what’s next
Core directors and service providers operate at the intersection of high expectations and tight turnaround times. Your users rely on you for reliability and access to the technologies that move research forward. This guide gives a detailed look at how HiFi performs head-to-head against other technologies for accuracy, reliability, and performance across variant types.
It also highlights an advantage unique to HiFi: native epigenetic information automatically included with every run. You’ll learn how this added dimension of data can open new service offerings without adding extra assays. This resource debunks common myths, and explains how HiFi supports high-impact applications in oncology, rare disease, agriculture, and microbial genomics. If staying in demand means staying ahead, this guide helps you see what is coming.
For anyone struggling with grant applications
In addition to each of the Sequencing 101 booklets, we compiled data-driven proof points to help researchers communicate the value of using HiFi sequencing in the ever-daunting grant writing process. This publication-backed resource will help build your case for the feasibility, rigor, and impact of your research.
Whether you are applying for your first student fellowship or managing multi-year institute-level funding, this resource helps you articulate why HiFi sequencing provides a complete multiomic view of complex genomes for research across any field.
Beyond the basics of HiFi sequencing
Across fields and career stages, one theme holds true. When you understand how HiFi sequencing works and how it strengthens your research, you can make better choices for your projects, your training, or your lab’s future. These Sequencing 101 resources offer a clear introduction to the concepts that matter most and provide practical guidance you can use immediately.
Regardless of your role, there is a version of Sequencing 101 that speaks directly to your needs. If you’re ready for a clearer, more confident starting point, There’s HiFi for That.