WSU Acquires DNA Sequencer.

WSU acquires DNA sequencer.

I’m Lacy Gray, Washington Ag Today is next.

Researchers at WSU will now be able to assemble and characterize genomes with dramatically improved speed and accuracy thanks to their newly acquired DNA sequencing machine. WSU Horticultural genomicist Amit Dhingra says this is a first.

DHINGRA: The PacBio sequencer is the latest and the greatest advance in the area of acquiring sequences from living organisms, DNA sequences. And we are the first land grant University to have one on our campus. We will be able to quickly reach the desired goal of sequencing any genome and that is to find what other genes inside an organism and once we have that knowledge we can start doing functional biology start to relate those genes with processes that are of interest to us.

Dhingra explains why this is so important and exciting for agriculture in Washington.

DHINGRA: One of the critical points of having this machine in Washington State or at WSU is that Washington has more than 300 crops which are utilized in agriculture, and we are one of the richest areas as far as diversity goes for these commercial crops. And that’s where we need a lot of improvements. I think that’s where the biggest impact will be. We can start identifying the genes in all these crops very rapidly to start affecting the base economy of the state and thereby the nation.

I’m Lacy Gray and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Northwest Ag Information Network.