Operational Area Department of the CORE Molecular Biology Laboratory Service
The CORE Molecular Biology Laboratory forms part of the Biomedical Diagnostic Centre (CDB) at the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona. It was created in 2015 to centralize and automate the main molecular biology techniques carried out in the CDB’s different services. The use of state-of-the-art techniques, such as massive parallel sequencing (next-generation sequencing, NGS), circulating free DNA analysis and nCounter technology, places the CORE Molecular Biology Laboratory at the forefront of clinical diagnostic laboratories in our country.
As a fundamental part of the laboratory’s development, the CORE Molecular Biology Laboratory has a bioinformatics area aimed at developing algorithms that allow the large flow of information generated to be accurately examined and validated.
The Laboratory is divided into different areas:
- Nucleic acid extraction
- Sanger sequencing and fragment analysis
- Nucleic acid expression and genotyping
- Massive parallel sequencing (next-generation sequencing, NGS)
- Bioinformatics
The CORE Molecular Biology Laboratory is highly automated and dedicated to the processing of samples for genetic diagnosis. The main workflows, such as nucleic acid extraction, Sanger sequencing and part of the massive parallel sequencing, use robotic platforms for processing, which optimizes performance and allows a large number of samples to be processed quickly and accurately.
Last year in numbers
28.000
Nucleic acid extractions
47.300
Sanger sequencing studies
1000
Whole exome studies using NGS
3000
NGS tumoral patology
1.560
Microbiome analyses using NGS
Know the team
The laboratory consists of a multidisciplinary team of doctors, bioinformatics staff, a technical care coordinator, a technical team and an administrative staff. The team of physicians specializes in molecular biology techniques and is involved in the healtcare work of their respective services. Currently, residents of the various services of the CBD (the Immunology Department, the Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics Department, the Microbiology Department, and the Pathological Anatomy Department) rotate temporarily through the laboratory as part of their training.
Joan Anton Puig
Head of Service
