A British biotech company that makes hand-held devices that sequence DNA and RNA in real time has raised £100m through a private placing.
Oxford Nanopore, whose Minion device was used aboard the International Space Station this year to sequence DNA, will use the cash injection to ramp up commercial expansion into Asia, the US and the rest of Europe. It also wants to invest in its pipeline and boost production.
The University of Oxford spin-out was founded in 2005 with the aim of developing its 'nanopore' sequencing technology to open up DNA analysis to researchers so that they can perform it in their own labs.
The minion in action
The minion in action
Its mission now is to bring DNA sequencing to the masses, by "enabling the analysis of any living thing, by any person in any environment".
At the moment, the Minion is primarily used by research scientists and doctors to analyse pathogens and establish what disease outbreaks and transmission rates look like.
Scientists are using the Minion in Zika, Ebola and Malaria surveillance and in areas such as cancer, crop genomics and reproductive health.
The device can analyse the DNA of any product, whatever the starting sample, such as blood or water.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/12/12/uk-company-behind-space-station-dna-sequencer-raises-100m/These things are amazing.
Back when I was at uni, we'd just started really getting into DNA sequencing. It involved a large sample, a shitload of time and - for the final step - literally cutting up the printouts of the seperated and sequenced fragments and laying them out like a jigsaw puzzle to get the full sequence.
