Tomorrow (July 31), Genome Biology will host the #SMRTseq Tweet chat on PacBio's SMRT sequencing platform, as discussed in detail in this earlier blog post.

To give budding Tweet chattees food for thought before letting rip on their keyboards, Biome (BioMed Central’s new online magazine) has posted a Q & A with Rich Roberts, lead author on the Genome Biology Correspondence article upon which the Tweet chat is based.

In the Q&A, Roberts explains why he decided to evangelize on behalf of SMRT technology (he has no personal interest in PacBio), and comments on how he sees the sequencing wars playing out in the future. He also tells us why the work for which he received a Nobel prize, the discovery of introns, plays second fiddle to the true highlight of his career.

As a reminder, the Tweet chat will take place take place July 31 at 11 am EST/4 pm BST for a one hour duration. All you need to do to take part is to include the hashtag #SMRTseq in your tweets – you will be able to read the thoughts of other contributors on the #SMRTseq Twitter page.

The 'official' panel is composed of Roberts' co-authors Mike Schatz and Mauricio Carneiro, as well as Mario Caccamo, Jason Merkin and Eric Johnson. Please see our previous blog post list for a list of the questions that will be discussed during the chat.