Facility Details

The Functional Genomics and Bioinformatics Core provides consultative, laboratory, and bioinformatic services for next generation sequencing (NGS)-based applications. The development of next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies have made it possible to address biological questions comprehensively and with less bias at a systems level. Taking advantage of these approaches can require specialized technical and analytical skills that may be out of reach or not worth the investment for individual laboratories. The goals of this Core are to provide better access to these methods in order to enhance and facilitate a deeper understanding of complex disease processes and how they can be diagnosed and treated.

The Core is located on the 7th floor of the Center for Life Sciences building in the Longwood Medical area (3 Blackfan Circle, CLS-728). While the majority of clients come from Boston area research communities, we also service customers around the country. Most clients are in the fields of metabolism, obesity, and diabetes, as NORC and DERC funding provide discounted fees, and represent the expertise of the co-drectors Evan Rosen and Linus Tsai, though we can and have performed services for a broad range of research areas.

Specifically, our core services include:
1) Pre- and post-experimental consultation to determine proper experimental approach, design, and interpretation
2) Standalone RNA preparation, RNA and DNA Bioanalyzer analyses, chromatin shearing/shear checks
3) Sample quality assessment of DNA and RNA using the BioAnalyzer and Qubit assays
4) Library preparation, sequencing, and analysis of transcriptomes (RNA-seq), cistromes (ChIP-seq), chromatin accessibility (ATAC-seq)
5) Standalone sequencing on NextSeq500
6) Multiplexed 10x Single Cell/Nucleus Library RNA-seq Droplet generation, Library Preparation
7) Basic data analysis: quality assessment and normalization, genomic alignment, differential expression/enrichment, functional enrichment analysis (overrepresentation and GSEA), sample clustering, and motif enrichment
8) Bespoke data analysis, including integration of complex ChIP-seq and RNA-seq data sets, single-cell sequencing analyses