14 DAY TRIAL // A collaboration of scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Harvard University believes that the single-atom-thick material known as graphene could be used to improve the speed of existing genome-sequencing techniques.
The researchers say that sequencing is becoming an increasingly common procedure, and add that many people are demanding to know their own genetic maps, for a variety of reasons.
To answer this demand, numerous companies have already begun providing genetic sequencing services to private individuals, but the procedure is still fairly expensive.
Those who want it done need to pay in excess of $5,000 to $10,000 for a single investigation.
Private companies, research institutes, universities and government agencies alike have been trying to develop methods of making the technique faster and cheaper, so as to make it widely-available to the masses.
Now, the Harvard/MIT group says that graphene may be precisely what the sequencing industry has been waiting for.
The experts explain that current nanopore sequencing technologies use a series of membranes for making such studies possible. The group also adds that graphene can take on the role of these membranes, with lower costs and greater efficiency.
The existing technique is in itself a huge step forward from its predecessors. It relies on passing a long strand of DNA through a nanopore, inside a crystalline solution with a voltage applied to it.
As the four bases in DNA pass through the pore, the electrical properties of the system change by a specific margin, which allows researchers to determine the exact sequence the bases have in the strand.
But these pores are usually made up of bacterial proteins, which means that they are between 20 and 30 nanometers thick. By using graphene, bioengineers could produce nanopores just one atom thick.
This would be “the thinnest membrane that has ever been applied to this problem,” explains Harvard physics professor Jene Golovchenko.
The expert is the leader of the current research effort, which is detailed in this week's issue of the esteemed scientific journal Nature.
“They've taken nanopore technology to the next level. Making solid-state nanopores was a great idea, and doctoring them with graphene is a great first step,” says National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) biophysicist John Kasianowicz.
But challenges still linger ahead. “To be able to sequence [a DNA strand], you need to be able to control the flow of DNA through it and slow it down,” the NIST scientist concludes, quoted by Technology Review.