Marc is a Technician in the Genomics Core Technology Unit (GCTU), which is based in the Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences.  Marc supports the GCTU in the wet lab with a wide spectrum of DNA and RNA sequencing techniques.

Background

Marc studied biology at the University of Heidelberg from 1994 to 2000 and has a Master’s degree in Zoology.

After University Marc worked as a technician in a number of laboratories, applying molecular techniques and aquiring expertise in legacy DNA sequencing techniques. Prior to his current role Marc worked as a technician at Queen's Northern Ireland Molecular Pathology Laboratories (NIMPL) and gained experience of state of the art Next Generation Sequencing methods, and he utilises this knowledge in his current post.

Current roles and responsibilities

In his current role Marc supports the GCTU in the wet lab with a wide spectrum of DNA and RNA sequencing techniques, making use of state of the art sequencing equipment. He also performs quality assays for the DNA and RNA samples received in the unit, prepares samples for sequencing in a procedure called library preparation, and operates the sequencing instruments.

The GCTU supports researchers in various fields, including cancer research and other medical research, with their sequencing needs.

As a service laboratory to the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium (COG UK), the lab contributed to the nationwide effort to sequence the Coronavirus variants, and the team implemented an innovative method of sequencing batches of several hundred samples at a time while minimising the expenditure of consumables. In collaboration with the School of Natural and Built Environment, the Unit developed a public facing dashboard with up to date graphic information about the Coronavirus situation in Northern Ireland.

The GCTU strives to incorporate the latest sequencing technologies into their portfolio of services, and has acquired a state of the art instrument for long read sequencing (PacBio Sequel IIe); and secured the knowledge and instrumentation to perform single cell sequencing, which has become very popular with researchers at Queen’s and helps them to stay at the forefront of medical research.

Contribution to specific research initiative or project

Marc played a key role in implementing a new workflow designed for high throughput sequencing of Coronavirus samples in the lab. This workflow makes use of a liquid handling system already in use before the pandemic, the Echo 525. With this instrument, it is possible to set up library preparation reactions in a 384 sample per batch format without the need for pipette tips, which were in limited supply during the pandemic. Furthermore it allows the reactions to be set up in greatly reduced volumes, reducing the cost per sample considerably.

The protocol that was developed has been published online: Mini-XT, a miniaturized tagmentation-based protocol for efficient sequencing of SARS-CoV-2.