Oxford University’s Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics (WTCHG) and the leading genome analytics company Genomics plc today announced the first sequencing and analysis of multiple human genomes using nanopore technology. The announcement, made on Thursday at the Oxford Nanopore Community Meeting in New York City, marks a major breakthrough in sequencing technology in opening up the potential of wide-scale whole-genome sequencing in humans using nanopore approaches.
Today’s announcement raises the possibility of a major change to both the economics and the science of DNA sequencing. Researchers at the WTCHG and Genomics plc used the MinION sequencer developed by Oxford Nanopore Technologies. The portable MinION is a hand-held device about the size of a Mars bar, and is powered by a laptop computer to which it connects via a USB port. It is available for $1,000 plus the cost of consumables. While nanopore sequencing has been available for two years, ...
