A solid-state sequencer
February 25, 2013
Nabsys has developed a solid-state gene sequencing machine that will allow researchers to determine the structural organization of long stretches of DNA, MIT Technology Review reports.
This differs from most existing sequencing methods, which read DNA in short snippets that are later stitched together by software. The new system will, at first, complement existing methods, but it could eventually offer cheaper and faster sequencing than other approaches.
Understanding the overall order of DNA sequence on a chromosome is important for studying disease and treating patients, but this big picture can be difficult to get because of the short-snippet approach of most sequencing. Because these methods cannot always figure out how to arrange long repetitive sequences, they can fail to recognize missing sequences, additional sequences, or repeated sequences, all of which can lead to disease.
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Comments (3)
by Ian Clarke
I hadn’t realised that current DNA sequencing was mostly done on this ‘short snippet’ approach. Oh well, great news – onwards & upwards!
by Gorden Russell
This is something to pay attention to. Researchers are on the verge of breakthroughs that will end all inherited diseases. A lot of us will benefit from this.
by asiwel
Yes, indeed. Simply put, the order in which genes and other coding strings of DNA appear in the chromosome make a great deal of difference. Imagine writing a computer program in a text editor, ending each line with a return character. Then chopping up that code into individual lines, randomizing, and then trying to put it back together or to figure out what the program itself did or was supposed to do. Or imagine randomizing the words in this paragraph and then trying to reconstruct it by brute force. Those problems (particularly the second one) are almost trivial in comparison.