The Human Origins Genotyping Laboratory (HOGL) was formed to service the DNA testing needs of large-scale projects for both the academic community and the private sector. Over the last few years HOGL has expanded to meet the needs of National Geographic and IBM's "Genographic Project." HOGL provides testing for all of the pubic participants of the Genographic Project for the entire world. In order to service this demanding project we have built infrastructure to extract, quantify, normalize, and amplify DNA from thousands of samples at a time. Our Biotechnology Computing Facility (BCF) has constructed a custom Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) to track samples from their entry into the laboratory, through all of the testing procedures, to completed results. Through our collaborations with the Genomic Analysis and Technology Core (GATC) and the BCF, we are capable of providing the client with cheek cell collection swabs and barcoded vials and performing all manipulations necessary to provide nearly any form of genetic data set for any type of client.

We have recently expanded the scope of our laboratory to include the DNA Shoah Project, a humanitarian effort to perform a forensic reconstruction of the victims of the Holocaust.  This project is being coordinated in our laboratory and seeks to reunite families separated by the Holocaust, as well as provide a database for the forensic community to enable the proper identifications of the remains of the victims.