Old is new: maximising read lengths and yield for genome assembly

Dr John Tyson is a senior research associate in the lab of Professor Terrance Snutch based in the Michael Smith laboratories and Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health at the University of British Columbia, and a member of the Nanopore Whole Genome Sequencing Consortium. A molecular biologist by training, John has been utilising nanopore sequencing in his research since 2014, focusing on both full-length transcript sequencing to investigate splice variation and whole genome sequencing and assembly. He is currently working on methods to expand nanopore read lengths for better production of whole genome assemblies, and using individual full-length RNA/cDNA transcript sequencing to better understand contextual splice variation in neurological disease.

Here, he tells us about how long-read sequencing has changed his work, and the impact of ultra-long reads on data analysis and interpretation.