A Quarterly Newsletter

Information in NGS technology and research

April 2023 | Vol. 02 Issue 1

Hello there, 

Welcome to the latest edition of The seqWell Scope!  

Synthetic biology encompasses a wide range of endeavors across applications. This includes protein design, gene editing, and cell engineering – harnessing the power of biology to create new technologies, materials, medicines, and modes of discovery. In this issue, we explore the impact that seqWell's technology is having on high-throughput sequencing in synthetic biology with our transformational ExpressPlex™ Library Prep Kit.

The game-changing capabilities enabled by ExpressPlex were highlighted in seqWell’s recent webinar collaboration with the synthetic biology team from Octant Bio, a drug discovery company located in Emeryville, CA. This webinar discussed the application of ExpressPlex to OCTOPUS, the high-throughput plasmid sequencing platform that powers Octant’s therapeutic discovery platform. Henry Chan, PhD (Synthetic Biology Lead) and Bryan Jiang (Research Associate) shared how ExpressPlex has dramatically improved OCTOPUS and accelerated their overall discovery process.

Henry and Bryan noted how ExpressPlex is easy to use yet it significantly improves the pace and scale of synthetic construct and plasmid screening and sequencing with comments such as:

“With the advent of ExpressPlex into the workflow, this reduction in turnaround time, labor, and expertise for OCTOPUS has greatly increased the usefulness and accessibility; Now it’s just one-step transfer and then we put it onto the library. We can actually democratize this, and people can run it.” (Henry)

“With the simplified and faster library prep that ExpressPlex allowed, it made my life a lot easier. By combining the speed and simplicity of ExpressPlex with a shorter RCA protocol, we were able to achieve next-day turnaround of full plasmid verified sequences.”  (Bryan)

Needless to say, we’re excited to bring positive experiences like Henry’s and Bryan’s to the world! I encourage you all to explore the resources below, including the Octant webinar. If you’re interested in learning more about how we can help you scale and simplify your sequencing applications, don’t hesitate to reach out for more information. 

Thank you for your continued support of our work!  

Best regards,

Joseph Mellor, Ph.D.

Co-Founder and CSO

In this issue:

• Video: "Enabling High-Throughput Biology With New Technologies for Synthetic Construct Sequencing" (30 minutes)
• Product spotlight: ExpressPlex™ Library Prep Kit (Your ticket to speed, throughput, efficiency)
  
• Blog: "The Importance of Automation in Plasmid Sequencing" (5-minute read)
• Blog: "Streamline Plasmid Prep for NGS with Rolling Circle Amplification" (5-minute read)
• Blog: "Assessing CRISPR On-Target Editing and Structural Changes with UDiTaS Using Tagify Reagents" (15-minute read)
• Company News and Upcoming Events: Takeaways from AGBT-Ag 2023

FEATURED VIDEO

Octant is a therapeutics company building a platform that navigates the complexity of biology and chemistry to create the next generation of small molecules. In this video, "Enabling High-Throughput Biology With New Technologies for Synthetic Construct Sequencing," Octant's Henry Chan, PhD, and Bryan Jiang explain how they have combined and optimized the ExpressPlex 90-minute library prep workflow with rolling-circle amplification to generate their upcoming high-throughput plasmid sequencing pipeline update.

PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT

Coming Soon! ExpressPlex™ Library Prep Kit

A transformational one-step library preparation method for multiplexed plasmid and amplicon sequencing. This kit was designed for applications that focus on speed and volume versus high-depth reads. More information can be found in our poster here.

• Auto-normalizing 90-minute library prep 
• Reduce labor while increasing efficiency
• Flexible batch sizes (8-768 samples)
• Automation-friendly

Contact us to request early access of ExpressPlex

FEATURED BLOGS

The Importance of Automation in Plasmid Sequencing

The steps toward plasmid production are well known, from making a brand new plasmid or retrieving one from storage to transformation, culture media inoculation, colony picking, culture expansion, and plasmid purification. This blog will explore how each of these steps can be automated while maintaining quality.

Streamline Plasmid Prep for NGS with Rolling Circle Amplification

Plasmids are easy to work with and can be manipulated in a variety of ways, making them essential for research in areas such as synthetic biology, cell and gene therapy, and functional genomics assays. However, preparing plasmid templates for DNA sequencing can be one of the most time-consuming steps in the sequencing process. This blog will highlight innovative solutions for generating robust quantities of high-quality plasmids.

Assessing CRISPR On-Target Editing and Structural Changes with UDiTaS Using Tagify Reagents

CRISPR is both precise and powerful. It is an effective method for addressing numerous mutations, such as Leber Congenital Amaurosis type 10 (LCA10). This blog will outline an effective CRISPR method and highlight how to produce a large-scale supply of Tn5 transposase complexes to further optimize gene editing.

Become a seqWell blog subscriber!

COMPANY NEWS AND EVENTS

👉 The era of long-read sequencing has fully arrived for high-quality genome characterization in plants and animals. Numerous talks and presentations showed the impact of the quickly improving technology from PacBio and ONT.

👉 Sequencing methods continue to be ascendent for accurate, cost-effective, large scale genotyping. Low-pass WGS and targeted GBS are increasingly utilized for molecular breeding programs, especially for animals and crops without commercialized microarray solutions.

It’s great to see how our workflows and products play a key role in this story. They were designed to provide enhanced multiplexing to help people sequence more samples on sequencing instruments more easily and with higher performance.

Our work in low-pass WGS and other multiplexed applications was highlighted in four posters at this meeting and through a great talk by Gencove with sequencing performed on the Element Biosciences AVITI.

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