Each lab in Life Sciences may designate one member to become a “power user” of the Sequencing Facility. Power users are trained by our staff to independently run their plates on our sequencers. For information about our instruments, please see Equipment.
To schedule a training session, please contact Christian Daly (cdaly [-at-] cgr [dot] harvard [dot] edu). We charge a training fee of $220 per session. We will ask you for a 33-digit code that will be used to charge both the training fee and your subsequent usage fees (two different codes may be used). Please ask your PI or lab administrator for the appropriate code.
Once trained, power users are given an account that allows them to log in to the instruments. Users must also register for a Sequencing Account on the web signup page in order to be able to reserve time on the instruments. We allow reservations in one-hour time blocks. A typical run takes two hours, but longer runs may take up to four. You must also record how many plates you will run during your scheduled time so that we can correctly charge your account. You may cancel a reservation up to two hours before the scheduled start time. After that, the scheduled run will be charged to your account.
We charge a fee per plate to recover the cost of reagents and instrument maintenance; $100/plate for runs on the 3730xl sequencers or $75/plate for runs on the 3130xl sequencers. You cannot run partial plates as a power user. If you have fewer than 96 samples, consider submitting them to be run by our staff.
Once your samples have run, please come back to retrieve your data. You may transfer your data using our temporary server space on \\titan2 or with a USB key. To save to \\titan2, go to Start, Run, and type \\titan2\dna. Open your folder and transfer your data there. You can now retrieve your data from any computer with an internet connection. You will need to use your CGR or MCB username and password to authenticate. Point your web browser to ftp://www.mcb.harvard.edu/dna. Scroll for your folder. Drag your files from this folder to your local computer (it’s wise also to make a backup onto other media). Once you have confirmed the successful transfer of your data, please delete the original off the hard drive. Any data older than one week is subject to deletion without warning.