Oxford Nanopore’s new portage device to facilitate “on the go” DNA sequencing
Marking its foray into the gene-sequencing arena, Oxford Nanopore Technologies – a closely-held company based in Oxford, England – is planning to come up with a new portable device which will facilitate people in analyzing DNA “on the go.”
According to the details shared by Oxford Nanopore Technologies, the portable device – dubbed MinION – will be a smaller version of the GridION device which the company is already developing. The size of the new device will be almost that of a USB stick; and it will likely hit the markets in the second half of 2012.
With its MinION and GridION devices, Oxford Nanopore will be taking the plunge in a market which is largely dominated by Life Technologies and Illumina. The company is banking on both its products to fire up demand for machines which can decode the DNA – which are the building blocks of life – and, thus help identify new targets for medicines as well as illuminate crop science.
As per Oxford Nanopore, the design of the GridION will chiefly facilitate the clustering of the computing equipment for the purpose of sequencing an entire human genome in as quickly as 15 minutes; while the MinION, which will be a ‘one time use’ device, will not have the capability of decoding an entire human genome.
Nonetheless, noting that the MinION “USB stick is an absolute game-changer,” Gordon Sanghera – the CEO of Oxford Nanopore – said during the course of a telephonic interview: “It’s plug-and-play, on-the-go DNA sequencing.”
