Wide-range of uses in varied fields
“Nanopore technology comes in handy not just in COVID sequencing but also in varied fields,” says Dr. Lakmal Jayasinghe.
Nanopore technology can also be used in other clinical applications such as cancer research, agriculture, food production and also the environment, it is learnt.
It can very quickly answer concerns such as: Is this food or water safe to sell or consume? Should there be a shutdown of a production line to clean it? Or can the contamination be caught at different stages? How can the production of livestock, fish or seafood be optimised? How can biopharma biological production be optimised? Can real-time surveillance be done to see the organisms in an environment? Think of walking into a small health clinic which has a pocket size sequencer. By the time a patient gives the history of his/her illness, the doctor will have in hand what bug is causing that illness, in personalised medicine.
These are some instances where this revolutionary DNA sequencing instrument has been used:
Being taken in a truck to villages far away from labs in West Africa for Ebola surveillance, to enable the generation of results less than 24 hours after getting an Ebola-positive sample. The sequencing process had taken less than 15-60 minutes.
In sub-Saharan Africa, huge cultivations of cassava (manioc) on which people rely for food and income were being assailed by two viruses transmitted by the whitefly. With visual detection not possible, this technology had helped researchers and farmers to identify the plant pathogen and get an insight into which variety of cassava to plant to withstand these viruses. Real-time monitoring of food safety from farm to processing, to factory and to distribution to the consumer.
In cancer treatment, to identify the malignancy-causing genes and give targeted treatment.
“In the lab or in the field, as remote as dense jungles or the Arctic and Antarctic, this technology is a winner,” says Dr. Jayasinghe, adding that they are working on a smartphone compatible sequencer that people can take home with them.