DFFRU Shallow Shotgun DNA Sequencing

ERRC scientists will send extract DNA from bacterial pellets to be shipped overnight on dry ice for shotgun sequencing and data analysis. After thawing the samples, The Contractor will perform DNA sequencing. The sequencing reads will be evaluated for quality and subject to bioinformatic analysis in order to identify the sample contents at the strain level. Next-Generation Sequencing (Shallow shotgun sequencing, with a minimum of 3 million reads and an ability to go up to at least 20 million reads per sample) is required. This data will then be sent to the DFFRU scientists in 2 ways: a server-based method of looking at the Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) as well as a way to download the raw data file sent directly to the DFFRU scientists in question. The Contractor will also contribute to data interpretation. The Contractor should have the ability to create a user-friendly initial interpretation of the sequencing data. User-friendly in this instance means a server-driven system or app that users can log in to and use to perform standard data manipulations such as alpha diversity and beta diversity measures for the microbial community that was sequenced.