BEA - user guidelines
BEA provides an extensive repertoire of genomic technologies to ongoing research projects principally at the Karolinska Institute but also at other Swedish universities and companies. Our goal is to facilitate research projects by providing expertise and service in the field of genomic analysis.
Project Submission and Workflow
BEA provides infrastructure in the form of expert competence and service at all stages in different genomic analysis. We offer complete analysis pipelines including experimental planning, sample processing and bioinformatic support.
Experimental Planning
After an initial contact by email or telephone, we can arrange a meeting to discuss the details, specific requirements and timing of a project. Users are encouraged to fill in and sign a BEA service form which will contain information about the PI, the desired project, sample and invoicing information.
Several decisions have to be made regarding the different assays offered at BEA. It is important to have a clear understanding about the desired method, the selected experimental groups, number of replicates etc. Different assays have special requirements for concentration and quality of RNA/DNA which needs to be communicated. Please contact BEA for advice.
Sample delivery
Usually the customer delivers the samples together with a signed BEA order form. When the samples are delivered, BEA will submit the requested order into the iLab system for approval and the customer will be placed in the project queue. Please contact BEA before delivering samples.
iLab
After delivery of samples, all projects at BEA are handled with the KI cloud based core facility management system iLab which is connected to the identity management system used by KI.
All BEA users need to be registered and approved by PIs in iLab to initiate a project request at BEA. After registration in iLab, BEA staff will create a project for the customer to approve.
RNA/DNA Quality Control
All samples will be subjected to Quality Control on Agilent Bioanalyzer or Agilent Tapestation. If the RNA/DNA quantity and quality is sufficient, the samples will continue to processing.
Sample preparation and Analysis
All procedures will be performed according to the manufacturers recommendations, and the output is generally unprocessed data. All samples delivered and processed at BEA will be kept for approximately 12 months after completion of the project before discarded without further notice. A backup version of generated raw data will be stored on our servers for approximately 12 months after completion of the analysis. It is the users responsibility to download and store the analysis output data.
Data Analysis
Raw data is always processed for Quality Control purposes, and BEA will always provide the customer with processed data in Excel or txt format. See the Data Analysis section for further information.
How to acknowledge BEA
There is no publication demand at BEA, however, when there is a substantial intellectual and/or experimental contribution to a publication, our personnel appreciate to be acknowledged just as any other co-author. To support BEA in future evaluations and applications, all users are required to acknowledge experimentation or services performed at BEA in manuscripts submitted for publication.
Example of acknowledgment text:
“We would like to thank BEA, the Bioinformatics and Expression Analysis core facility, which is supported by the board of research at the Karolinska Institute.”