Northwestern Engineers Find a Faster Way to Separate DNA
Researchers from the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University have developed a new technique for separating DNA which helps make the DNA sequencing process faster and less expensive.
McCormick’s innovative method brings scientists one step closer to a long sought-after goal — an affordable test that quickly determines an individual’s predisposition to cancer and other hereditary diseases.
To make the breakthrough, a chemical engineering professor and six graduate students used a glass microchip filled with a specially tailored polymer solution. Using chemical processes, the team tangled the polymers into a network which efficiently filtered out the DNA as it passed through.
The new process allowed the Northwestern scientists to separate 600 base pairs in 6.5 minutes, a speed 10 times faster than capillary array electrophoresis technologies currently being utilized for DNA sequencing and 3 times faster than other microchip DNA separation techniques. As the lead investigator explained,
“I believe that Northwestern now holds the record for the fastest long-read DNA sequencing ever accomplished. This is of course a considerable feat in itself, however, the implications for low-cost, high-throughput sequencing technology are what is really exciting.”
Annelise Barron
Former Professor of Chemical Engineering, McCormick School of Engineering
(Now affiliated with Stanford University)
If you’d like to learn more about the method, McCormick’s work is published in the January 9, 2008, online edition of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Source: McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
Related Links: genomics.xprize.org; guardian.co.uk; genome.gov; manufacturing-chemist.info
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Tags: NIH-funded; National Human Genome Research Institute; genetic testing; cancer risk factors; cancer prevention; biological engineering; Evanston, IL
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