01 February 2011

Lifting the Nano Curtain


Late last week Oxford Nanopore, a next gen sequencing company which has been in stealth mode for the past couple of years, gave us a little peek at what they've been working on.  As a nanopore-based technology, we already knew it would probably have long reads and minimal reagent requirements. What's really interesting is the form factor of the instruments. Not only are they inexpensive (prices haven't been stated, but the consensus seems to be around $50k), but they're really small and they can be combined into sequencing "networks". Daniel MacArthur, Luke Jostins and Kevin Davies have all written up nice summaries on the technology and how they think it will be used.

In addition to previewing what looks like some pretty cool (and remarkably polished) technology, they're revealing some nice marketing moves as well. First, they've published four very slick videos describing their technology (see below). Second, they've timed their announcement very well as it was just a few days ahead of AGBT, the "biggest" (well, most significant, anyway) sequencing technology conference. Despite not being a sponsor of the meeting, they're sure to generate a lot of buzz. That's a great way to stretch a marketing budget.

Hopefully we'll hear more after AGBT starts rolling this week.


The GridION system: part 1 from Oxford Nanopore on Vimeo.


The GridION system: Part 2, advanced workflows from Oxford Nanopore on Vimeo.


Nanopore sequencing from Oxford Nanopore on Vimeo.


Exonuclease sequencing from Oxford Nanopore on Vimeo.

1 comment:

  1. Helpful post, Shawn... I have heard very little of ONP and have been wondering when they would pull back the curtain a bit.

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