

New chip delivers DNA results within an hour - bcl
http://dangerousprototypes.com/2013/05/02/new-chip-delivers-dna-results-within-an-hour/

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kens
Note that this chip isn't doing genome sequencing - it's looking for SNPs,
i.e. a bunch of known single letter changes in the DNA. This chip chops up the
DNA, runs high-speed PCR to amplify the segments, filters the DNA, and then
uses a new electrochemical sensor to detect the SNPs.

There's considerably more information at
<http://www.diginfo.tv/v/13-0022-r-en.php>

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latj
Yeah, I was expecting whole exome in a few hours or something. I'm waiting for
that press release still.

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ucpete
Exactly. It's not clear to me whether they're only checking for SNPs in a
single locus or if they can multiplex (or do whole exome). Though Oxford
NanoTech is still essentially vaporware at this point, their technology
excites me a lot more than something like this.

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latj
Yes, and before them PACB's vaporware excited me. Lets just be happy we can
still get excited about something. :>

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mjt0229
On the whole, this "announcement" doesn't really provide a lot of detail, and
some of the scientific explanation is misleading (or just wrong). That doesn't
mean the development isn't exciting - doing a PCR on a chip that size is
pretty cool.

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jostmey
I am going to guess that the chip is similar in design to that of Ion
Torrent's DNA sequencer. I believe that Ion Torrent's DNA sequencer is nothing
but millions of little pH sensors.

In any case, THIS IS F __*ING COOL!

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mylons
I used to work for Ion in R&D for their sequencers. Sales would claim, "the
chip is the machine!" However, the chip really does nothing in Ion's case.
Like you said, millions of little ph sensors. This thing actually lives up to
the Ion Torrent promise. They could gain a lot of traction if they actually
marketed it that way.

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hyperbovine
> This thing actually lives up to the Ion Torrent promise.

Are you sure of this? The video makes it sound like this thing is a sort of
automated SNP chip, which is great, but is far less than what Ion Torrent is
promising. You're getting a list of SNPs at known sites--no data on rare or
novel variants. No sequence data also means you are powerless to detect any
sort of structural variation.

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piqufoh
Correct - Ion Torrent (and Oxford Nanopore) promised a `sequencer on a chip`
and this isn't that, it's `PCR on a chip`.

That said, PCR for known SNPs (breast cancer, alzheima's etc) in this
timescale could revolutionise modern medicine (no hyperbole!)

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mylons
I'm curious what this will do to disrupt the efforts of companies offering
tests using the current array of DNA sequencing technologies (which are
probably mostly Illumina Hi-Seqs and MiSeqs).

This piece of equipment seems like it cuts out a lot of the pain of those
technologies: massive data output, requirement of expensive compute resources,
a team of bioinformaticians, etc.

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nollidge
I think this cuts out the pain more on the lab side. Note that this is a SNP
array, not a sequencer. Current-gen SNP array output is already relatively
painless to work with (depending on manufacturer, I assume - Affymetrix 6.0
arrays were pretty easy).

But this technology appears to automate a lot of the lab side: restriction
enzymes to chop it up, PCR to amplify, etc., which is also applicable to
sequencing.

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tenpoundhammer
"Listen punk, we have your DNA and we'll have the results in under an hour.
Why don't you just come clean now and we can make this a lot easier on
everyone."

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kunle
This law and order episode is being written as we speak.

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jjcm
What's the cost going to be like? Is it cheap enough that I can do DNA
fingerprinting through SNP matching at home? If so it could be a fun project.

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SpikedCola
Man, those 90° traces are uuuu-gly!

Still pretty darn cool though.

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codereflection
One step closer to a portable midi-chlorian detector.

