Frequently Asked Questions
About Diversigen
Diversigen and CoreBiome have come together to create one company that is powering microbiome discovery through sequencing, analysis, and consulting services geared toward the study of the microbiome of living organisms and environments. The combined bench strength of the merged organization is unparalleled in the industry, providing you with access to those who are pioneering advancements in the microbiome field.
By working closely with key manufacturers and applying laboratory best practices, Diversigen has developed state-of-the-art techniques to extract high quality nucleic acids from a variety of sample types for subsequent metagenomic analysis.
Our flexible sequencing and computing capacity, combined with ongoing improvement of analytic tools and their applications, allow us to customize unique strategies on a per-project basis.
Diversigen takes pride in one-on-one consultation with the customer until complete satisfaction is achieved. The services we offer cover the full spectrum from organism detection, to analysis, modification, and consultation. We believe in transparency through the pipeline process and provide customers with access to the best science in the microbiome field and the responsive service you have come to expect.
Diversigen is a wholly-owned subsidiary of OraSure, Inc., headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Working with Diversigen
Diversigen’s customers include microbiome scientists in pure and applied fields from industry and academia.
We provide sequencing and analysis to power microbiome discovery for small start-ups and Fortune 500 companies, the labs of individual university researchers, and direct-to-consumer companies.
We serve researchers in pharmaceutical and agriculture R&D, environmental monitoring, cosmetics development, pet nutrition, direct-to-consumer testing, and other industries.
Diversigen provides high-quality microbiome sequencing and analysis services that are reliable and scalable for projects of all sizes. We provide services for a wide range of applications in human health, agriculture, and environmental monitoring.
Our microbiome experts have extensive experience within academia and can provide valuable insights to help you get the data they need for publication or clinical trial outcome. We pride ourselves on the scientist-to-scientist relationship we have with our customers and strive to accelerate microbiome discovery by delivering high-quality data using well documented and rigorously tested methods.
In order to ensure that the service we provide is optimally tailored to your experimental design, we initiate all projects with a discussion about your goals via email or teleconference. To get started working with Diversigen, please contact us.
Whether you have samples in hand or are working on receiving funding, our team will work with you to define and understand your project, goals, timelines, and deliverables to ensure your sequencing strategy is fine-tuned to accelerate your research program.
Turnaround Time and Billing
Project turnaround times can be adjusted to meet your needs. Contact us for a turnaround time estimate for your project.
In general, our turnaround times are 4-6 weeks depending on the size of your project.
We are happy to work with you to get your data back when you need it. Our shortest processing time is one week from sample arrival. Please contact us for more details regarding cost for expedited orders.
Upon project completion, our billing department will reach out to you with an invoice for services rendered.
Ensuring Data Quality
Using proper sample collection and storage techniques is critical to ensuring high-quality samples and data.
For collection and storage, we recommend DNA Genotek’s products as a gold standard for many types of samples. When possible, we also recommend that Diversigen carries out DNA extraction of your samples on site.
If extraction at Diversigen is not possible, we highly recommend following guidelines for submitting DNA found here.
Microbiome measurements are susceptible to error, bias, and contamination at essentially every stage of the data generation process.
Incorporation of appropriate experimental controls is essential to ensure the reliability and reproducibility of microbiome data.
For every microbiome sequencing project, Diversigen includes both positive and negative controls on each DNA extraction plate as well as positive and negative controls on each library preparation plate.
These controls are carried through the full sequencing process and analyzed to ensure data quality.
Diversigen also provides an extensive QC Dashboard with each analysis report.
Each project is unique and at project completion you will receive a full explanation of the methods used to generate your data, including any relevant citations.
Diversigen’s services are based on optimized microbiome profiling methods described in peer-reviewed publications:
BoosterShot®
Evaluating the Information Content of Shallow Shotgun Metagenomics Hillmann, B., Al-Ghalith, G.A., Shields-Cutler, R., Zhu, Q., Gohl, D.M., Beckman, K.B., Knight, R., Knights, D. 2018. mSystems. 3(6) DOI:10.1128/mSystems.00069-18.
BenchMark™
Systematic improvement of amplicon marker gene methods for increased accuracy in microbiome studies Gohl, D.M., Vangay, P., Garbe, J., MacLean, A., Hauge, A., Becker, A., Gould, T.J., Clayton, J.B., Johnson, T.J., Hunter, R., Knights, D., Beckman, K.B. 2016.. doi:10.1038/nbt.3601.
Sample Collection, Shipment, and Storage
Yes.
Through Diversigen’s sister company, DNA Genotek, we offer OMNIgene® collection kits for oral, gut (stool/fecal), skin and vaginal microbiome.
These optimized and validated collection solutions provide ambient temperature stabilization at the point-of-collection for a true snapshot of the microbiota with no cold chain required.
Learn more about these collection kits and request trial kits.
If you have questions about collecting other types of microbiome samples, contact DNA Genotek.
Diversigen stores primary samples at our facility for up to three months and is happy to return samples to clients after processing.
Please notify Diversigen before sample submission, if you are planning on having your samples returned, to provide shipping and payment information for return of samples.
Yes, Diversigen will archive the data for your project for one year with no additional charge.
Yes! Although Diversigen is located in the United States, we are happy to accept samples from around the world.
Working with our preferred international shipper, World Courier, will make the transportation of your samples simple and efficient. In our experience, only a non-hazardous declaration is required for human samples that are not known to, or suspected of, containing an infectious biological agent.
The declaration must include:
- A detailed description of the material
- A statement on official letter head signed by the person responsible for the shipment clearly stating that (1) the material is not known or suspected to contain an infectious biological agent and (2) how the person making the certification knows that the specimen does not contain an infectious biological agent; or the basis of the belief that there is no reason to suspect that the specimen does not contain an infectious biological agent; or a detailed description of how the material was rendered non-infectious.
For non-human samples (including soil, animal and agricultural) or human samples that may contain an infectious biological agent, please reach out to your Diversigen representative for detailed information on shipping.
Services
Diversigen has experience working with a wide range of sample types, including human gut (fecal), vaginal, urine, skin, oral, saliva, and biopsy samples, as well as in vitro cultures, animal, plant, soil, built environment, and other environmental samples.
We have worked with a variety of collection formats including bulk samples, swabs, and samples collected in stabilization buffers or directly frozen.
If you have questions about whether your sample type is suitable for analysis or which collection method to use, please contact us.
We run sequencing projects on the Illumina MiSeq, NextSeq or NovaSeq.
Analysis
Yes, example reports for BoosterShot™, BenchMark™, and StrainView™ are available on our website.
Yes, see the DATA tab of our example report.
Yes, any metadata you wish to provide will be incorporated into the data visualizations provided back in your Core Analysis™ report.
You will be able to view sample stratification by any metadata provided in all of the returned alpha and beta diversity plots.
You can submit any metadata along with your samples using our submission forms.
Yes, we can carry out a wide variety of custom analyses though our CorePlus™ Analysis, including hypothesis testing, longitudinal analysis, biomarker discovery, and machine learning approaches.
We are happy to work with you to create publication-ready data visualizations.
Ready to get started?
Diversigen provides services and generates data for research purposes only. Not all services are available in all regions.
