created by Geraldine_VdAuwera
on 2018-04-26
If I believed in fate, I would say she has a twisted sense of humor. As you may know, today (April 25) was [National DNA Day](https://www.genome.gov/10506367/national-dna-day/) in the USA. And as it happens, on this very day, our friends and colleagues in the Broad’s Genomics Platform hit a major milestone: they sequenced their 100,000th human whole genome! How exciting, right? And a complete coincidence!
But that’s not the twist. The twist is that, knowing this was going to happen (because the Genomics Platform is a well-oiled machine), they had planned a celebratory livestream of the preparation and loading of the sequencer… only for the broadcast to fail because another sequencer flooded the bandwidth when it started uploading data to its mothership! Yep, even on DNA Day there can be such a thing as too much DNA.
Fortunately someone recorded the whole event on a local laptop so we can still enjoy all ~20 minutes of Eric Lander, Stacey Gabriel, Sheila Dodge and Andy Hollinger discussing the nature and implications of this milestone while Erin LaRoche does the actual work of loading the sequencer (Novaseq in action!) with samples from the Gabriella Miller Kids First project, including lucky number 100,000.
So [click here](https://www.facebook.com/broadinstitute/videos/2083299018376884/) to view the full video on Facebook and find out what the Broad will sequence once we run out of people…. Then head over to [reddit/science](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/) for Aviv Regev’s “Ask Me Anything” session on Thursday April 26.
Updated on 2018-04-26
From SkyWarrior on 2018-04-26
Awesome coincidence. I am drooling to those novaseqs. Makes me jealous.
From Geraldine_VdAuwera on 2018-04-26
Heh, they’re like spaceship pods, right? If you’re ever in the Boston area you should come take a tour of the facility (email tours at broadinstitute dot org), it’s pretty cool! As they explain in the video, the building used to be a warehouse for stocking popcorn and beer for the Fenway Park baseball stadium. From the outside you can’t tell it’s this super high-tech facility that pumps out a new genome every 12 minutes ;)