Local capability building in genomics R&D through the Philippine Genome Center

By Cynthia P. Palmes-Saloma
Program Director
Philippine Genome Center
DNA Sequencing Core Facility
U.P. Diliman, Quezon City

Thursday, 14 August 2014
1:15-2:15 p.m.
Havener Auditorium
IRRI


Abstract:

An exciting development in the country that is getting local researchers excited is the establishment of Philippine Genome Center, or PGC. PGC has multidisciplinary programs in health; agriculture; biodiversity and bioenergy; forensics and ethnicity; and ethical, legal, and social Issues. Under these programs, genomics will be used as a tool to address issues on food security, genetic disorders, bioremediation, and bioenergy sources. In support of PGC programs are the Core Facility for Bioinformatics (CFB) and the DNA Sequencing Core Facility (DSCF).

In addition to providing services to its own programs and to other institutions, PGC also conduct its own research through its core facilities and serves as a training ground for future genomics scientists.

In this presentation, Dr. Palmes-Saloma will discuss two of the projects under the DSCF: the (A) shrimp pathogen whole-genome sequencing and (B) marine snail venom duct transcriptome analysis. To date, the DSCF has provided services for next generation-sequencing (NGS) of whole genomes of bacteria, targeted resequencing, transcriptome sequencing, and metagenomics sequencing and analysis. Other services available are Sanger sequencing of PCR products and plasmids, automated nucleic acid extraction, and nucleic acid quantification.

NGS capabilities of the DSCF are complemented with the high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure and IBM’s Blue Gene®/P supercomputer at the CFB. With these technologies readily accessible, the potential for molecular biology and clinical research is greatly expanded and will undoubtedly spur more scientists to explore NGS-based strategies in their research.