Oxford Nanopore Technologies congratulates
our collaborators Professor Mark Akeson and Professor David Deamer of the University
of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) on receiving a $1.1 million NIH grant under
the US National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) "$1,000 Genome
Sequencing Technology Development" grant programme.
Oxford Nanopore is developing a platform technology for the direct electrical
analysis of single molecules. The Company's lead application is DNA sequencing,
however the platform may also be developed for the analysis of other analytes
including proteins. In 2008 Oxford Nanopore and UCSC announced an agreement
whereby Oxford Nanopore licensed exclusively nanopore sensing science that had
been developed at UCSC and also agreed to fund further research in the UCSC
laboratories.
Oxford Nanopore's first generation of DNA sequencing technology uses a processive
enzyme to cleave individual DNA bases from a strand, then identifies these bases
as they pass in order through a nanopore.
The subsequent generation may identify DNA bases on a long, intact strand of
DNA as it passes through the nanopore. A key challenge for the development of
this technology is the speed at which DNA passes through the pore; in nature
this is too fast to identify individual DNA bases on a strand. Professors Deamer
and Akeson have been developing a method of controlling the passage of DNA using
a polymerase enzyme coupled to the nanopore so that this method might be developed
into an industrial DNA sequencing system.
Dr Gordon Sanghera, CEO of Oxford Nanopore Technologies, said: "We would
like to congratulate Professor Akeson and Professor Deamer for this well-deserved
grant. The UCSC lab is recognised as having world-leading expertise in the control
of DNA molecules for nanopore sensing, which is a fundamental challenge for
the second generation of nanopore sequencing technology. We are proud to be
working with their talented and dedicated team."