The claim that nanopore technology is on the verge of making DNA analysis so fast and cheap that a person’s entire genome could be sequenced in just minutes and at a fraction of the cost of available commercial methods, has resulted in overwhelming academic, industrial, and global interest. But a review by Northeastern University physicist Meni Wanunu, published in a special issue on nanopore sequencing in Physics of Life Reviews, questions whether the remaining technical hurdles can be overcome to create a workable, easily produced commercial device. Earlier this year Oxford Nanopore Technologies, one of the pioneering companies of sequencing discoveries, announced that they expect nanopore strand sequencing to achieve a 15-minute genome by 2014 at a cost of $1,500. This is a far cry from the $10 million it cost to sequence an entire genome just 5 years ago.
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