| 摘要 |
A virtual DNA sequencer combines a plurality of individual DNA sequencers. Samples of DNA or other nucleic acid from subjects are prepared and allocated in real time to particular lanes or sets of lanes in electrophoresis plates of the individual sequencers, with records kept of the allocations. The data resulting from the electrophoresis runs is collected and collated according to the identities of the subjects. The individual sequencers are networked, and each individual sequencer is preferably equipped with a data buffer large enough to accommodate all or substantially all of a data run, thus protecting the virtual sequencer from loss of valuable data in the event that the network is disrupted for some portion of the time of the data run. In this way, a plurality of sequencers is virtually the same as a single sequencer with a very large number of tracks each of which can run for a much longer sequencing run than an individual sequencer. |
