A new promise for high-speed genetic sequencing by threading DNA segments through carbon nanotubes was revealed in Science this week

The Human Genome Project was first launched in 1990 by the US government, and a working draft of the genome was issued ten years later. At 1998, a similar venture was launched by Craig Venter and his firm Celera Genomics, who made use of a faster sequencing method to reach an initial working draft in only two years. It’s clear that genetic sequencing technology is being developed at a rapid pace, and now a new research sheds light on what may be the high-speed sequencing technology of the future: using carbon nanotubes for the diagnosis of each individual’s genetic makeup.

The new technique, as published in the current issue of Science is based on threading single-stranded ribbons of DNA through a carbon nanotube, producing voltage spikes that provide information about the passage of DNA bases as they pass through the tube. The single-stranded DNA is drawn into the opening of the nanotube and translocated from the anode side of the nanotube to the output cathode side, due to the negative charge carried by the DNA molecule.

The bright side is that this method can be used with thousands of carbon nanotubes at the same time, through which will pass millions of DNA segments, to give an accurate reading of the entire genome in less than an hour. This vision, however, is still very far from reaching home base. For one thing, carbon nanotubes are still quite costly to manufacture. For another, the entire process of threading the DNA through the nanotubes has still been demonstrated only in the lab and under carefully controlled conditions. Last but not least, even in the labs nobody has yet managed to utilize this method to actually sequence a DNA segment. In short, the future is still far, far away.

Source

The paper in Science

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