Daniel Barker – In the original Star Trek series, Dr. “Bones” McCoy used a handheld device called a tricorder which could, among other things, instantly diagnose a patient’s health status by reading his or her DNA.

The original series was set in the 23rd century, but here in the 21st century, a similar device has already been developed and it’s being hailed as a revolutionary step towards “the democratization of sequencing.”

The device, called MinION, is not only small and portable – about the size of an older-model mobile phone – it’s also inexpensive. The MinION sells for around $1,000 and its potential uses are almost limitless.

The handheld device is in its early stages of development, but it is already being put to good use by scientists in the field. For example, MinION has been used in Guinea to read the genomes of Ebola samples and will be put to use by astronauts on the International Space Station in the coming months to read DNA samples in space for the first time.

Enormous potential, myriad uses

Although there were performance glitches in the prototype, the latest version of MinION appears to work very well. It’s not as powerful or accurate as some of the larger stationary DNA analysis machines, and it can’t read something as complex as complete human DNA strands, but it is able to perform a number of very useful functions.

From The Guardian.com: Continue reading →