Biological Resources

A History of Genetic Research Services

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First established in 1980 at the University of Queensland, St. Lucia Campus as the Australian Equine Blood Typing Research Laboratory (AEBTRL) and then the Australian Equine Genetic Research Centre (AEGRC). Genetic Research Services has a long history in providing excellent customer service and genetic testing to both UQ and external clients.

 

The Australian Equine Blood Typing Research Laboratory was established by Dr Kevin Bell in partnership with the Australian Stud Book. It was primarily an equine blood typing parentage service, the first of its kind in the southern hemisphere. It developed a panel of blood group reagents and biochemical tests for parentage testing in horses that was used not only in Australia but around the world. Tests were also developed for parentage-testing of other species including cattle, alpacas, zebras, cats and dogs.

 

During this time, the AEBTRL became part of the International Society of Animal Genetics (ISAG) and since they have started has participated in the global ISAG bi-annual comparison tests and consistently received 100% accuracy. 

 

In 2003 the equine blood genotyping service moved to DNA testing with the acquisition of a 3700 capillary electrophoresis instrument and the laboratory was renamed the Australian Equine Genetics Research Centre. The centre continues to provide and exemplary service for equine genetic testing as well as other animal species and also forensic testing for the Police Stock Squad. 

 

In addition to these services, the centres association with UQ and also its expertise and specialist equipment, a sequencing and fragment service and a mouse genotyping serivce were established for UQ and the wider research community.  This provided a complete genotyping service which includes test development, DNA extraction, PCR and analysis as well as a high quality, fast DNA sequencing service to customers. During this time over 200,000 mouse samples have been processed and over 300 tests have been developed. 

 

​In 2016 mouse genotyping and sequencing became the major services for AEGRC which continued to provide genotyping and sequencing on a cost recovery basis for researchers whilst maintaining previous quality systems put into place through the requirements of ISAG and ISO 9001 accreditation.

 

In 2019 in recognition of being a central service provider to UQ the AEGRC was moved under the Research and Innovation portfolio and officially became part of Biological Resources.

 

In 2021 the AEGRC was formally renamed Genetic Research Services (GRS) to better reflect the current services on offer and continues to provide a range of genetic services to both UQ and external researchers.