Most of the posts I've written recently have involved next-generation DNA sequencing in one way or another, which may have left some readers scratching their heads - keeping track of the different technologies, how they work, and their strengths and weaknesses is a challenge even for those immersed in this fast-moving field.
Fortunately, help is at hand for readers who don't know their SOLiD from their 454. Luke Jostins (who wrote a guest post here on Genetic Future a while back) has a great new post up on his blog Genetic Inference providing some background on second-generation sequencing. Luke's post focuses mainly on the Illumina platform, currently the most widely-used instrument in the game; but there's a promise of a future post on third-generation technologies.Another very helpful resource for next-generation newbies is Mun-Keat Looi's article over at the Wellcome Trust website, which comes with detailed animations explaining first-generation ("Sanger") sequencing and both the 454 and Illumina second-generation platforms.If anyone has other online next-gen resources that would be useful to newcomers please post a link in the comments and I'll add them to the post.
Subscribe to Genetic Future.
Follow Daniel on Twitter.
