DNA Sequencing
Sequencing is the reading of the precise order of adenine (A) guanine (G) cytosine (C) and thymine (T) nucleotides within a molecule of DNA. Shotgun sequencing is a method whereby DNA is fragmented into one kilobase pieces, are then sub-cloned into circular plasmids, and transformed into bacteria. Automated colony picking is essential for increased throughput and plasmid isolation for sequencing. QPix colony pickers are renown for reliability and accuracy, and were used by many sequencing centers during the Human Genome Project. Many areas of research, such as vaccine development, continue to utilize traditional sequencing techniques.