The ACGT had its first Plant Biotechnology Research Infrastructure Exhibition day on the 12th of November 2016. This event took place at the University of Pretoria’s Plant Science Complex and was attended by 20 students, lecturers and researchers from all the ACGT partner institutions.
The ACGT usually has two Plant Biotechnology Forums per year but this year only one plant forum was held at the beginning of the year and the exhibition day replaced the 2nd forum for the year. The aim of this exhibition day was to afford the ACGT partner institutions the opportunity to showcase their shared equipment/facilities that cater to the plant biotechnology community. The event was informal and the attendees had the platform to interact with the facilities managers (or representatives). Attendees were provided information about the equipment and services offered as well as discussed future collaborative projects.
The following partner institutions exhibited the following facilities:
1. University of Pretoria (UP): UP showcased their QuantStudioTM 12K Flex Real-Time PCR platform. This platform aims to promote large-scale quantitative real-time PCR-based functional research at UP and at a national level.
2. Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR): The CSIR exhibited their Biosciences proteomics and Biomolecule Characterisation facility. This facility applies a range of techniques (including high resolution, high mass accuracy mass spectrometry) to quantitatively characterize complex lysates as well as recombinant peptides, proteins and antibodies.
3. Agricultural Research Council (ARC): The ARC displayed their Illumina MiSeq and Illumina HiSeq2500 platforms that generate NGS datasets ranging from 125 to 300bp in size. The platform also hosts a Laser Capture Microdissection (LCM) microscope , high throughput, automated liquid handling robotics systems, and a high performance compute cluster for data analysis and data storage.
4. University of Pretoria (UP): UP showcased their Ion Torrent Sequencing Facility that provides high-quality high-throughput sequencing solutions to researchers in South Africa. The Ion Torrent Personal Genome Machine housed in a dedicated laboratory in the new Plant Sciences Complex is capable of generating up to 2 GB sequence data from single or multiplexed samples.
5. University of Johannesburg (UJ): UJ exhibited some of their recent results on the use of LC-MS based Metabolomics approaches in Plant Biotechnology research as well as MS-based phytohormone analysis. The Shimadzu Nexera UPLC ultra-fast LC , Shimadzu LC-IT-TOF-MS and Shimadzu 2010 Ultra GC-MS equipment were showcased.
6. University of Pretoria (UP): UP also exhibited their ACGT Microarray Facility. This facility supports research projects utilizing the Agilent platform for microarray studies. Catalog arrays for model organisms, or custom arrays with flexible array configurations provide a good balance between cost and data throughput. All the required hardware for hybridising Agilent slides are available in the facility.
The ACGT hopes to have another exhibition day in the near future. The 1st plant event for 2016 will be the 12th Plant Biotechnology forum to be held at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.
