The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute plans to purchase an Illumina MiSeq instrument, according to a notice of intent posted on the Federal Business Opportunities site earlier this month.
NHLBI said in the notice that the MiSeq, which is being purchased on behalf of the National Human Genome Research Institute, would be used for library-prep quality control for experiments run on the Illumina HiSeq 2000, among other applications.
Using the MiSeq for library-prep quality control will help "reduce failures and costly repeats," and provide a "more accurate cell titer of the library sample before it is loaded onto the HiSeq sequencer, which is more expensive to run," NHLBI said.
James Hadfield, head of the genomics core facility at the Cambridge Research Institute, also plans to use the instrument to check the quality of sequencing libraries before running them through the HiSeq (IS 9/20/2011).
The NHLBI notice of intent added that the MiSeq is easy to use and does not require emulsion PCR, allowing for a "self-contained system that minimizes handling errors and contamination concerns."
The National Institutes of Health's Intramural Sequencing Center already operates both the Illumina Genome Analyzer and the HiSeq, and the solicitation request cites the ability to use the same chemistry and data analysis that the NISC uses for those systems as a requirement for purchase.