A Visual Guide to DNA Sequencing

I worked in this space for over a decade. It's so weird to me to see the workhorse sequencing hardware like the ABI 37x/37xx series, 454, and Illumina machines now as literal museum pieces.

I culture fungus, perform DNA extraction, run PCR (polymerase chain reaction - the process used to clone the gene(s) I want to sequence), and gel electrophoresis in my home lab. I then ship tubes of the DNA to mclab.com where for about $3 per sample, they'll run sanger sequencing and email me the data the next day. Works great for DNA barcoding and plasmid sequencing.

Nice writeup, but missing 2 newer sequencers:

Roche's Sequencing By Expansion platform and UltimaGenomics' platform

(edited for clarity)

We need PC revolution for biology. Put a box on every table we can tinker with.

So it's not just a strong magnifying glass and tiny tweezers?