Improvement of Technical and Analytical Performance in DNA Sequencing by External Quality Assessment-Based Molecular Training

supported the EQUAL-initiative to develop method-ological external quality assessment (EQA) schemes for genotyping (EQUALqual), quantitative PCR (EQUALquant), and sequencing (EQUALseq). As a rel-evant part of the EQUALseq program, a training course was held subsequent to the first EQA Program (EQAP1). The success of this course was reassessed in a 2nd EQUALseq round (EQAP2). Methods: In September 2005, a 3-day training course took place. We invited 8 laboratories with below-aver-age performance in EQAP1 to improve their method-ological and analytical/proficiency skills by lectures and practical work. To compare the results of the pretraining and posttraining EQUALseq rounds, we distributed 2 samples used in the first EQUAL round, but this tim