In the third episode of the new season of ‘La mare de la ciència‘, the Catalan-language podcast of the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB), we find out what a research service or core facility is and how genetic sequencing has progressed by talking to Berta Fusté, head of the Genomics Unit at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG).
The CRG Genomics Unit is a scientific and technical service of the PRBB that centralises technologies and specific methodologies for sequencing genetic material. It is a specialised laboratory that supports the research of the CRG and the other research centres of the park, as well as external laboratories. “You concentrate technological knowledge and resources in the same lab and serve the external community. It is a very practical and efficient way of using resources in science“, explains Berta. The DNA and RNA sequences they generate are used in research in a wide variety of fields, such as personalised medicine, agriculture and functional studies of drugs.
The challenge for the Genomics Unit is to keep up with new technologies and protocols that are constantly evolving. Gene sequencing techniques have come a long way in the last 20 years. Berta explains that it used to take 13 years to sequence a single human genome, but now we can sequence 50 in 24 hours. The new methods also make it possible to sequence any species, even if there is no reference genome. The head of the unit invites us to take a walk through the different generations of sequencing methods, explains how they work and talks about the challenges for the future.
“Nowadays you can work in science without following the classical path. There are many programmes and many profiles that are important for research to move forward”
Berta Fusté, CRG
In this interview, Berta Fusté also shows us that there are many paths in science. “Nowadays you can work in science without following the classical path. There are many programmes and many profiles that are very important for research to move forward”, she explains.
Don’t miss this interview with Berta Fusté by Maruxa Martínez-Campos!
