Oxford Nanopore Technologies

Oxford Nanopore Technologies Limited is a U.K.-based company which is developing and selling nanopore sequencing products for the direct, electronic analysis of single molecules.^[2][3][4][5]

History

The company was founded in 2005 as a spin-out from the University of Oxford by Hagan Bayley, Gordon Sanghera, and Spike Willcocks, with seed funding from the IP Group.^[6][7] As of 2014 the company had raised over £250 million in investment.^[6]

Products

• MinION:^[3][8][9] this portable protein nanopore sequencing USB device has been commercially available since May 2015^[10] after having been launched initially through an early access programme, the MiniON Access Programme (MAP).^[11] An editorial describes the rapid pace of development during the MAP: “for the MAP participants it has been a white-knuckle ride. We have had three “pore” changes (R6, which was only around for about a month, R7 and the current version R7.35). This was coupled with six chemistry changes and a software update seemingly every few weeks. For some it has been too much change, but early access programmes are not for everyone”. Publications from this programme outline its use in rapid identification of viral pathogens,^[12] monitoring ebola,^[13] environmental monitoring,^[14] food safety monitoring,^[15] monitoring of antibiotic resistance,^[16] analysis of structural variants in cancer,^[17] haplotyping,^[18] analysis of fetal DNA,^[19][20] and other applications.^[21]
• PromethION: this desktop, high throughput device will be available through an access programme^[22] that opened for registration in July 2015. The device contains channels for 144,000 nanopores (in comparison to MinION’s 500.^[23]
• VolTRAX: this device, currently in development, is designed for automated sample preparation so that users do not need a laboratory or lab skills to run the device.^[24]
• Metrichor: This spinout company from Oxford Nanopore was set up to provide cloud-based analysis of real time DNA sequencing data streaming.^[25]
• GridION

These products are intended to be used for the analysis of DNA, RNA, proteins and small molecules with a range of applications in personalized medicine, crop science, and scientific research.^[3][26]

As of late 2015, MinION is being used by over 1,000 researchers.^[27] PromethION and GridION have not yet been brought to market. In a paper published in November 2014, one of the MAP participants wrote, "The MinION is an exciting step in a new direction for single-molecule sequencing, though it will require dramatic decreases in error rates before it lives up to its promise.".^[3] In July 2015, a group published on nanopore sequencing of an influenza genome, noting “A complete influenza virus genome was obtained that shared greater than 99% identity with sequence data obtained from the Illumina Miseq and traditional Sanger-sequencing. The laboratory infrastructure and computing resources used to perform this experiment on the MinION nanopore sequencer would be available in most molecular laboratories around the world. Using this system, the concept of portability, and thus sequencing influenza viruses in the clinic or field is now tenable.“ In a paper and accompanying editorial ^[28] published in October 2015,^[29] a group of MinION users wrote, “At the time of this writing, around a dozen reports have emerged recounting utility of the MinION for de novo sequencing of viral, bacterial, and eukaryotic genomes.”

Internet of Living Things

Oxford Nanopore has worked to establish the concept of an 'Internet of Living Things', originally conceived as an 'Internet of DNA' by a bioinformatician based at UCSC ^[30] In an article in Wired in 2015, Dr. Clive Brown, CTO of Oxford Nanopore noted that "future nanopore sensing devices linked to cloud based analyses could run anywhere on anything.".^[25]

The concept of an Internet of Living Things was referenced in a 2015 paper by Yaniv Erlich describing a future of ubiquitous genomics. Erlich noted that "multiple appliances could benefit from integration with sequencing sensors, including air conditioning or the main water supply to monitor harmful pathogens. However, of all possible options, toilets may offer the best integration point.”.^[31] For health-related applications he noted that "rapid sequencing at airport checkpoints might be useful to control pathogen outbreaks and offer medical assistance to affected passengers. Similarly, a portable sequencer will enable physicians to provide more accurate diagnoses in the field during humanitarian crises or in the clinic without the need to waste time by sending samples to a lab.”

References