Single cell DNA sequencing, pioneered by SCGC scientists, reads the genomic blueprints of the most fundamental units of life without the need for cultivation. This is a powerful approach to analyze biochemical properties and evolutionary histories of uncultured microorganisms, thought to constitute over 99% of biological diversity on Earth. Single cell genomics also provides unique insights into the microdiversity and evolutionary processes within microbial populations and within multicellular organisms.
SCGC is the first shared user facility of its kind. Since its establishment in 2009, SCGC has developed partnerships and supported research projects at over 100 universities, research institutes, and companies in six continents. Over 1,000,000 individual cells have been processed through our high-throughput pipeline. Sources of these cells range from diverse marine environments, to soils, the deep subsurface, gut contents, and others. This has been providing unique genomic data from many major evolutionary branches of bacteria, archaea, and eukarya that resist cultivation, making a significant impact on our understanding of life on our planet.
For a recent review of microbial single cell genomics, please see here.