DNA sequencing has long suffered from inaccuracy and mistakes in readings despite leading technology. Nanopore sequencing is what researchers and professionals use today. DNA strands are passed through a nano-sized pores. Each of the four nucleotides have a unique characteristic that allow them to be read. Because the pores have an electrical current, the nucleotides will block the current in distinctive ways when they pass through. The method is revolutionary, without a doubt, but it is highly prone to mistakes because DNA strands pass through way too quickly.
This issue came to the attention of Aleksandra Radenovic's lab at EPFL's Institute of Bioengineering. With the help of researchers who led the project, Jiandong Feng and Ke Liu, they discovered a viscous liquid, capable of slowing down the process by a 1000 times, increasing the accuracy by a huge magnitude.
First they created a film made of molybdenum disulfide (0.7 nm thick) and made a nanopore in the film about 0.3 nm wide. Then, they dissolved DNA in a liquid, classified as a room temperature ionic liquid (salt dissolved in a solution). By altering the liquid's molecular structure, they were able to bring it to a more preferable level of viscosity to read the DNA more accurately. The researchers have used this test on nucleotides but they are still aiming to read whole DNA strands using this method.
I think this research is highly innovative and points us towards better technology in the field of genetics. The researchers are very passionate about their findings and hope that it can make DNA sequencing more effective and cheaper. This is an important discovery to me because genetic sequencing is the backbone of genetics; everything originates from the molecular level and to improve this technology can mean improvements in health as well. Maybe one day genetic sequencing can become more widespread and easily accessible if we have technology that is quick,
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