ReSeq: Repurposing HiSeq DNA Sequencers

[snarfy]

Mikeselectricstuff has some teardown videos of DNA sequencers. Interesting stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaumUp4GpCw

[kasbah]

I am part of this project but just about to board a 2 hour flight. If you have any questions, feel free to post below and I will answer them later.

[GautamGoel]

I saw an ebay link for 4 cameras pulled from a HiSeq 2000. I am interested in using the cameras to build a digital microscope, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to interface the cameras to a PC, or if they need optics to work. Any ideas? Here is the link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/4-Illumina-HiSeq-2000-Hamamatsu-S10...

[ak217]

This is very cool. I hope you get some cool uses out of this.

What's the max frame rate you can get out of the cameras (without tiling)? Are you able to control focus and camera gain?

[astazangasta]

What about reagents? The sequencers themselves are expensive, but library kits cost a lot of money, as do the reagents for running a flow cell. Even if I can get a sequencer for free, if I still have to pay through the nose for reagents it's no good. Especially as these sequencers become obsolete and people stop MAKING the relevant reagents, and their cost goes higher and higher.

[inciampati]

You can make your own reagents if you want to do sequencing reactions on this. It's not inconceivable.

It's not necessary even to do sequencing. These systems are at their heart a general purpose microfluidic system, temperature controlled flowcell with high throughout fluorescence imaging capabilities. You can do a hell of a lot of stuff with that feature set.

[braincode]

Good question! I've always wondered what would be required (in terms of equipment and raw materials) to make those reagents, I'm really curious to know how those get synthesized to and the level of purity/quality required for a successful sequencing run.

[bayesian_horse]

I think the idea is to use these as "automatic microscopes" instead of as sequencers.

[adenadel]

Here's another series of posts where they tear down one of the original Illumina sequencers (the Genome Analyzer).

https://blogs.swarthmore.edu/Illumina+GAIIx+Teardown/

[skosuri]

Ooh. I got a HiSeq 2000 for a six pack of beer. Can’t wait to try to hack it!

[kasbah]

You should become an alpha tester!

[hyperbovine]

Boy, do I feel old. HiSeq 2500 was a gold-standard, $750k machine when I was starting grad school. Which was not that long ago, or so I thought.