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Commercial, USB-Powered DNA Sequencer Coming This Year
Zothecula writes "Oxford Nanopore has been developing a disruptive nanopore-based technology for sequencing DNA, RNA, proteins, and other long-chain molecules since its birth in 2005. The company has just announced that within the next 6-9 months it will bring to market a fast, portable, and disposable protein sequencer that will democratize sequencing by eliminating large capital costs associated with equipment required to enter the field."
By going through their trash.
So when can we expect to see one in every police cruiser, insurance office and personnel department?
So when can we expect to see one in every police cruiser, insurance office and personnel department?
More importantly, we can expect to see one in every doctor's office and hospital, allowing inexpensive personalized medicine.
Sheldon: [gasps] I possess the DNA of Leonard Nimoy?!
time to shave my head... scratch that, time to shave my anything
The day is here when people can be discriminated against by the color of their DNA!
We must protest this by burning down all of the Oxford Nanopore buildings! In fact, we should burn down every building associated with scientific development!
It's the only way that we can be sure that we will still be able to discriminate for reasons related to the color of our skin, not the color of our DNA. I mean, do you really want to be disqualified from a job because you have a defective heart, or a genetic propensity for cancer, or weak bones and muscles, or you have a low IQ and will never have the intellectual power needed to perform your job?
Will the United States Army start recruiting the best and the brightest?
The technology has a 4% error rate, meaning that 4% of the bases are read incorrectly
Needs to drop an order of magnitude to be competitive, unless it's much cheaper than expected.
<reallysmallprint> * special discount rate available when results are analyzed and stored by AllYourGenome.com. Terms and conditions apply. Please read our privacy and data-marketing agreement before clicking "Submit".</reallysmallprint>
Take a look here:
http://www.mactest.eu/about/
I found the most interesting aspect of this which will limit the portability of the unit is the 6 hour analysis time.
I presume that the analysis will require the PC it is plugged into to have its processor running at full speed with all options enabled. When coupled with the 6 hour analysis time, this will exceed the battery life of any laptop out there which means that it is not as portable as implied in the press release/article.
By saying this, I'm not trying to dimish how remarkable this device and the breakthroughs that lead to it are. This really starts to bring personalized medicine within reach of just about anybody and will allow for in the field sequencing which was only once a dream.
Great job to the engineers and scientists at Oxford Nanopore!
myke
That's like the time I bought my first DVD-ROM drive. It was cool, but things got much better after buying my first DVD-RW drive. Muhehehe... :]
Ezekiel 23:20
The press release says it's a DNA sequencer, not a protein sequencer. I'm sure they're working on a way to sequence proteins using a similar principle, but that's not what they're claiming to come out with in the next 6-9 months.
"We're ready to have another kid, and we've almost finished the mixtape."
Once it's in round three or four of evolution and the price drops through the floor for the entire process, expect an invitation to trot down to your friendly, neighborhood, federal building, county courthouse, city police precinct, etc. to give a blood sample for, um, voter registration purposes.
"Trouble? I call it sport."
The technology has a 4% error rate, meaning that 4% of the bases are read incorrectly
Brundlefly likes those odds!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
This isn't practical for whole human genome sequencing, but could be practical for sequencing of PCR-amplified segments. To wit: at $900 for 100 Mbp of data, it would cost ~$60K for merely 1X coverage of a complete, diploid human genome (6 Gbp). For decent quality and continuity of the entire genome, at least 3X and more appropriately 10X coverage is needed--that's ~$600K.
You know, I would imagine every field biologist (and people like me who wish they were one ;) would love these things once they get just a bit cheaper.
How cool would it be to find some plant or little creature and say, what is that? (Big animals it might not be safe to get a sample from!). Maybe if the results went to some central repository like 'The Encyclopedia of Life", it could really help biological studies (not necessarily by finding undiscovered species but helping to determine the range of existing ones. Also genetic drift and, gasp, evolution!)
Of course, if it's that good and cheap, there is all sorts of mischief that could be played. Want to embarrass someone who may have illegitimate children? (I read somewhere that in a little british village, they found 1/4 of the children didn't have the fathers they thought they did). Get a lock of hair from parent and child (maybe a fingerprint would do). Want to see if your favorite celebrity/politician was susceptible to alcoholism? I'm sure the new DNA paparazi will find out.
It'll be interesting to see what new privacy laws come out of this.
GATTACA! GATTACA! GATTACA!
I am soooo coughing on one of these the next time I get the flu. This will make it so easy to identify which strains to mix for uber results.
Dear Doctor Amy Farrah Fowler,
The Genetics Industry Association of America (GIAA) understands you have been using a "genetic sequencer" device to decode genetic sequences that members of our association own as their intellectual property.
We are reminding you that your activities are strictly prohibited as you do not have a license for the sequences in question. We therefore require you to CEASE AND DESIST all such activities and destroy all devices you have been using to illegally decode other's intellectual property.
Attached please find an invoice for 30 million US dollars for fines, damages, legal fees, etcetera.
Most sincerely,
THE GENETICS INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION OF AMERIKA (GIAA)
-- How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics.
You don't know something is disruptive before it comes out. It's disruptive when it comes out and actually disrupts.
mov ah, 4ch
int 21h
Please don't mistake protein sequencing and DNA sequencing as equivalents.
This MinION is designed to do DNA sequencing and protein sensing, which is not quite as interesting, since most people doing DNA sequencing are used to have access to high output sequencers, which are faster and reusable.
Besides, this item only managed to read a DNA strand of 48500 bp (for reference, human genome has around 6 billion) so it won't be of much use for humans.
About the price :
http://www.genome.gov/sequencingcosts/
gives us a cost per raw megabase of 0.1$
so I don't see why I would like to pay 900$ for something that cant even squence one million base...
Let's wait and see.
Is it supported on linux ?!?
Joe Bloggs posts some of his DNA on his blog. Big pharmacy corp sues Joe Bloggs into oblivion because they have a patent on the gene he posted. Even though he pulled it out of his own DNA...
For some commentary with a bit more substance than 'gizmag', see:
http://pathogenomics.bham.ac.uk/blog/2012/02/oxford-nanopore-megaton-announcement-why-do-you-need-a-machine-exclusive-interview-for-this-blog/
e.g:
'Why a USB stick? "The form factor is determined by the requirements" - as there are no fluidics you don't need a big machine. There are no fluidics. "Your fluidics is a Gilson [pipette]", said [Oxford Nanopore CTO] Brown. The prototype version has an ugly battery pack attached to it but it will eventually use USB power. The USB stick is disposable. "Why do you need an instrument?" he says. We wander into the realms of sci-fi at this point. DNA molecules pass through the nanopore and nucleotide sequence is detected by the electronics. Bases are streamed - live - to your laptop as FASTQ (bases with qualities). This is where the "run until" makes sense, if you are interested in a particular gene just wait until the sequence comes out and shut it down to preserve the circuitry."
tl;dr?:
- This technology has enormous potential and looks like it could fundamentally change the way sequencing is used. Features like the long read length and lack of infrastructure required are hugely attractive.
- It isn't going to make genomes dramatically cheaper initially, promising only to be 'competitive' with existing technology (which is already down to the $3000-$5000 range per genome, and quite possibly $1000 by next year).
I noticed the error in the original post and looked and saw that coldwetdog had mentioned it around 5 PM EST. I'm looking at 9:45 pm EST and see that it hasn't been fixed yet. DNA != protein. And vice versa.
Protein sequencing and DNA sequencing are two very different things.
Medicine never got cheaper just because the tools to practice it lowered in price. People in the supply chain and the doctors either made more profit, or used more and other expensive things added to the cheap technology, because there were now funds for it. Usually both, resulting in a higher bill for the person being treated, or their insurance company. By the way, there's nothing wrong with co-pay, if there is a chemically identical but cheaper medicine available from a competing manufacturer. If there's a patent on the medication that's subscribed that makes it too expensive, the insurance should just pay for it, or fight the patent. If certain doctors that have no better results than others subscribe more expensive medication, insurance companies usually have ways to deal with them here in the Netherlands, so that shouldn't be an issue.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Of course, there are plenty of distopian possibilities as well... seen GATACA? We just need to make certain that we invent a whole new raft of privacy laws that protect free speech, the freedom of genetic diversity, and right to one's own genome not being used to segregate, subjugate or in any way marginalize a person.
Welcome to the brave new world, if your butt isn't just a little puckered, you're just not paying attention.
Whaaat? Your genome doesn't belong to you, dude. You are, at best, a transitory tenant in a house whose foundations were laid three and a half billion years ago. The genome, if it can be said to belong to anyone, belongs to the species, not to any particular instantiation of the phenotype. GATTACA was indeed a pretty bleak glimpse of the future, but only from the perspective of the poor sod who had the bad luck to be born before all the inferior DNA was screened away. Certainly, the film focused on that individual, but the flip side to GATTACA is a species that is almost completely free of disease and strife, and one that is taking its DNA to another planet. I think you may have lost sight of the fact that reproductive success via preferential selection is *why* you and I are at the top of the food chain on this planet. I would think the logical next step would be to encourage prospective parents to submit themselves to DNA screening, and not the legislation you suggest which, from the perspective of the species, would serve only to protect an individual organisms's right to bear defective off-spring. The selective pressures that produced our species were pretty much not under our control -- with this technology, we can sidestep those selective pressures and substitute our own. Why would you legislate to constrain our ability to control our own evolution?
That's neat and all, but can it read my midichlorian count?
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
You mean we can have DNA scanners at our desks that churn out reports like printer speeds in 90's Hollywood movies?
Another step closer to being able to do pirate gene testing. Right now if you, say, wanted to have your DNA checked for a predisposition to breast cancer (oh and you have boobies in this hypothetical situation, follow along - j/k, men can get it too), the testing lab would have to pay exorbitant licensing fees to the company that has the patent on the fact that those genes are linked to breast cancer (I shit you not) or if caught running these tests, they would have their asses sued off.
But with this device (from what I understand - maybe it's not that capable yet), you could download a testing app from a file sharing site and do your own illegal test in the privacy of your own home.
One step closer to that. Oh, and also Gattaca, rated by NASA as the most realistic sci-fi movie :-(
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
How cool would it be to find some plant or little creature and say, what is that?
Or to buy a hamburger at McDonald's and be able to say, "Hey, this doesn't have any cow in it at all! It's all soy protein!"
Seriously, every year one of the expensive private schools in NYC sends a class out into high-end restaurants and grocery stores to buy samples, which are then tested to see if they are really made from what they claim to be made from. Not surprisingly, much of the sushi they bought one year was not the fish it claimed to be.
Don't duck my friend. (Besides, we Mac users are more the back stabbing sort - ducking wouldn't help.)
That seems a rather ridiculous claim. I tend to use PCalc instead, but I've never seen the regular calculator app do anything screwy in a decade of use. The calculator widget on the other hand, 4% may be too low!
please. Cupertino bathhouse is less redundant. we get it.
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT