Our laboratories

As experts in the field of degraded DNA and Metabarcoding, eDNA frontiers has infrastructure, equipment and know-how to execute eDNA workflows with the level of precision needed for sensitive biotic surveys.  Samples are initially screened by qPCR to ensure appropriate DNA is added for robust biotic surveys. Extraction controls and qPCR controls are conducted throughout the workflow and tested for contamination.

Furthermore, sample processing, and post PCR steps are conducted in separate and dedicated facilities to avoid contamination. PCR set up is conducted in an ultra-clean laboratory; a 434 m², pressurised, class 100 (ISO 5), HEPA filtered clean air space housing five class 10 (ISO 4) ultra-trace laboratory modules.

All steps of the workflow are conducted using cutting edge technology and liquid handling robots in dedicated laboratories to avoid contamination and increase precision and accuracy. Finally, high level bioinformatic analyses are performed using a high-performance computing facility to ensure rapid and reproducible data analytics.

Pawsey Supercomputing Centre

Access to one of two, Tier-1, High Performance Computing facilities in Australia, with expertise in supercomputing, data, cloud services and visualisation. The Centre is used to complete the highly computationally intensive quality filtering and matching analysis of sequencing datafiles to taxonomic reference databases to produce presence/absence results and phylogenetic tree displays.