11th September 2013

New NIH awards focus on nanopore technology for DNA sequencing

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded grants of $17 million to eight research teams, with a focus on nanopore technology aimed at more accurate and efficient DNA sequencing.

These grants are the latest awarded through the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI)’s Advanced DNA Sequencing Technology program, which was launched in 2004. NHGRI is part of NIH.

“Nanopore technology shows great promise, but is still a new area of science. We have much to learn about how nanopores can work effectively as a DNA sequencing technology, which is why five of the program’s eight grants are exploring this approach,” said Jeffery A. Schloss, Ph.D., program director for NHGRI’s Advanced DNA Sequencing Technology program and director of the Division of Genome Sciences.

Nanopore-based DNA sequencing involves threading single DNA strands through tiny pores. The individual base pairs – chemical letters of DNA – are then read one at a time as they pass through the nanopore. The bases are identified by measuring the difference in their effect on current flowing through the pore. For perspective, a human hair is 100,000 nanometres in diameter; a strand of DNA is only 2 nanometres in diameter.

This technology offers many potential advantages over current sequencing methods, e.g. real-time sequencing of single DNA molecules at low cost and the ability for the same molecule to be reassessed over and over again. Current systems involve isolating DNA and chemically labelling and copying it. DNA has to be broken up, and small segments are sequenced many times. Only the first step of isolating DNA would be necessary with nanopore technology.

Innovation is crucial in these, as well as the other (non-nanopore) genome studies being funded. For example, one team eventually hopes to use light to sequence DNA on a smartphone chip for under $100.

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