On this article in UniSci a team of researchers in University of Houston say that they are trying to develop a new tech capable of sequencing one human genome in less than 24 hours. Their goal is to do it in one hour.
"We have made our polymerase so that theoretically it should act as a direct molecular sensor, sending a computer a signal telling us immediately the identity of the base it just read" -Hardy, one of the researchers.
It looks like it will not be long before you can have all the information about you (your SNP's) in a very short time. I'm not sure if we are ready for this yet.
Sequencing one human genome in less than 24 hours.
Fri, 2002-03-08 03:06 — PedroBeltrao
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Nanopore Sequencing
My first comment would be "how are they transducing this ?". I couldn't find any information regarding the mechanism from the article or a quick google search. One technology that does seem to be getting results is Nano Pore Sequencing. The Harvard group has some nice proof of principle results.
star trek future
This is interesting stuff. There are not many big leaps in biological technology these days. I've often thought that 'traditional' DNA sequencing is the last major bottleneck to be broken with something radically new.
Of course, if we start sequencing genomes in a day, the computational analysis will fall even further behind. How will GenBank cope with a constant influx of new genomes? How much more computing power will we need to analyse them all?
Mobius Genomics
Mobious Genomics, based in Exeter, UK, is I believe, a few steps ahead of the research group mentioned in the article.
Mobious describes its method as molecular resonance sequencing technology and is similar to the method described in the article.
see www.mobious.com for more info
Surface Plasmon Resonance ?
The Mobious web site is scant on any details of how there technology works (nice flash intro though). Does it have anything to do with surface plasmon resonance as used in the BiaCore systems ? Or am I way off here ?
Gattaga
Another (theoretical) approach I have heard of is to pass the DNA molecule through a sensor (like threading a needle) and get a read off a whole chromosome/large DNA molecule. I have heard Mobious mentioned, but I'm not sure whether their technology is DNA-pol based.
...technology could offer doctors a more rapid and more thorough way to determine who is at risk for certain genetic diseases, or which people might react adversely to a particular drug....
Rant for the day: I hate statements like these. They are simplistic and misleading to the uninformed reader. The only way to run diagnosics on genetic diseases and/or predispositions is to have a thorough understanding of the underlying biology, and use that to develop diagnostic markers. This paragraph implies that as soon as we have sequence, it is meaningful and we can deduce all sorts of wierd and wonderful things about the donor. Similarly, many general science articles imply genetic determinism (you will be fat because you have gene X), which is a load of organic waste.
It's quite sad that a front end for university info is so badly written.
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Chris
Viva la revolucion! Viva la annotacion!
Chris, ranting ?
I would never have expected it. Seriously, I agree with all you points and I think this points to the simple fact that science is communicated badly. Although the revolution that would be created *when* this technology becomes common place is difficult to even contemplate. From a bioinformatics perspective I can't begin to think how you could process that amount of information. Sure reading it and storing it is the easy part. Understanding it is another story.
So how's England or is it home now ? No blogs on the latest insights into micro array technologies ?
Who, me?
Agreed. What authors of such articles are trying to say is that the potential to do this is there. Yes, it's possible to postulate cancer diagnosics on microarrays, for instance. The technology is in place, we could do it tomorrow - if only we knew what to look for, and could do so reliably. Short answer: technology is the relatively easy part, it's the underlying biology that seems to become more and more complex as we investigate it. Not a bad thing necessarily - it's keeping us lot employed :-)
And it's still the UK - going home this weekend. Expect a large chunk of stuff on microarrays, sequencing, and genomics soon. Btw, I'm going to a seminar by Allan Bradley tomorrow....
PS, how does a microarray faq/collaborative book sound? At least some basic info?
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Chris
There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.
Bertrand Russell