Friday 17 February 2012

AGBT 2012 - Nanopores or NanoBores?

I am writing this anticipated entry on the fly so please forgive apparent illiteracy.

Perhaps the most eagerly awaited event of AGBT 2012 is Clive Brown's revelations about Oxford Nanopore's Strand Sequencing and the plans to commercialise the technology, independently, this year.

Slightly later than  scheduled, at 11.50 am Clive took to the podium and commenced his 20 minute presentation. 

Below is my attempt at a blog entry.  To be honest I was not expecting the bombardment of new information that was presented and the attempt at a report deteriorated into a series of rushed fragments.  Oxford Nanopore's website has now been updated and I recommend having a look there for further details.  There is a real buzz in Marco right now!



He commenced with an overview of the technology's principles (well explained elsewhere). He says over 1000 different types of nanopore have been tested.  Many different processive enzymes and sample preps too.  One prep takes 15 minutes.

Sensors can do up to 1000bps.

Whole PhiX 5 kB genome as single fragment, approx 4% raw read error on single pass (mostly deletions).  10 and 20 KB fragments achieved too.  No degradation of signal over time.

Initial RNA data tested and data looks as good as DNA - to be revisited later.

Sequencing achieved directly from rabbit blood - no prep sample!

MinION - USB sized disposable sequencer to be released this year.  150 MB per hour. Scalable to 1GB.  Life span 6hrs.  Sample goes in and then plugs into a USB port.

GridION 2k output (2012)  25-125GB per day.  GridION 8k (2013) 125-625GB per day.

Genome in 15 mins by next year (50x) with GridION 8k. 

Both to be released second half of this year.

WAY too much info for one talk.  Amazing. 

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