This webinar reviews a standardized, high-throughput, and fully automated library prep protocol for human metagenomic analysis. 

The human gastrointestinal tract hosts up to 100 trillion microbes with the greatest numbers residing in the distal gut. Given the vast presence of microbial genetic information, the ability to characterize communities from fecal material via next generation sequencing (NGS) has revolutionized the understanding of the human microbiome, and its influence on health. In order to gain further insight on these influences, the need for a standardized and scalable NGS metagenomics protocol is needed to minimize inconsistencies among existing methods (sample collection, sample storage conditions, experimental design, and scalability), which typically lead to data disparities and misrepresentation of the true state of the human microbiome.

In this webinar, Dr. Agata Czyz of Illumina's Genomic Applications Department discusses a comparative metagenomics study that relied on a high-throughput and automated library prep protocol for stool. Dr. Czyz discusses several parameters and methodologies that her team tested as well as the key findings of the study.