Acquisition of one GridION Mk1 from Oxford Nanopore technologies.

The mission of the NVSL DBPL MB Section is to genotype bacterial and viral pathogens that potentially cause disease in animals. DBPL MB also serves as a reference laboratory and frequently receives bacterial isolates for identification and/or genotyping. These machines assist DBL MB in genotyping and sequencing bacterial isolates quickly and efficiently. The sooner a pathogen can be genotyped the faster proper treatment can be given to an animal or herd. Then steps taken to protect a herd or potential sources of zoonotic infections can be determined. Genotyping also helps to eliminate most of the on-ground portion of tracing infected herds to an origin of infection. Being able to trace a herd’s infection by using bacterial snips saves millions of dollars per outbreak by not having to random testing in the field.  The old method of tracing a source of infection required months of test in the field to determine the source of infection.  Whole Genome Sequencing has cut the sample prep time down and made the process more efficient and reliable. Because the procedure is now simple and rapid many isolates can be prepared in a short amount of time. This is invaluable particularly during an outbreak. The MinION Mk1 would allow the USDA to sequence longer reads than is allowed by the current Miseq platforms.  This would allow us to sequence regions of repeats that the short reads used by illumina miseq can’t.  It will allow us to get a more complete picture of the organisms we are working with.

-    1x GridION Mk1
-    1x Assurance assistance in setup and installation
-    1x software License and Device warranty