Facilities at the
Natural Resources DNA Profiling & Forensic Centre

 The Natural Resources DNA Profiling and Forensic Centre (NRDPFC) along with ReTiSoft Inc. have a partnership that extends to the facilities at Trent University. See Industrial Partners page for background into ReTiSoft

ReTiSoft's Genera integration framework and Supra hybrid scheduler control two DNA platforms at Trent University. The platforms provide the infrastructure required for the establishment of validated, cost-effective high throughput DNA profiling protocols that can be directly applied to human and animal forensic testing as well as environmental and agricultural genomics.  The first platform (Pre-PCR) is primarily used for DNA isolation, quantification, standardization, and replication.  The second platform (PCR) is primarily used for PCR reaction setup, PCR reactions, PCR cleanup, and reaction pooling.

The development of a sample X-Y loader along with our Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) software and methods guarantees that each sample delivered to our lab will be bar-coded and tracked throughout the extraction and profiling procedures.

The Pre- PCR DNA robotic platform is a unit involving specialized liquid handling and sample-processing devices integrated by a CRS tracked robotic arm, under the control of the Genera open-architecture integration framework.  The track is 2 m long and can access a Perkin Elmer Evolution P3 liquid handler, BMG Fluostar Galaxy plate reader, barcode reader and automated single pipette station.

Individual samples are bar-coded and tracked by ReTiSofts DataPilot in conjunction with the NRDPFC LIMS by the use of bar-coded plates.

Pictures of  Hardware
The use of high-throughput robotic testing eliminates the need for manual labour (i.e. human error) to perform routine and laborious tasks that come with DNA extraction, DNA amplification, sequencing
and genotyping. The introduction of robotics improves the performance and productivity of research conducted at our facility.