( rsity UK. $4.2 million (5 years) Si...)NHGRI expands effort to revolutionize sequencing technologies

This project is a collaborative effort between two laboratories that have experience in nanopore research, protein engineering and molecular recognition. The group will engineer a device with the ability to recognize a nucleotide on the basis of changes in electrical current, as it passes through a membrane with tiny channels known as nanopores.

Jene A. Golovchenko, Ph.D., Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
$5.2 million (3 years)
"Electronic Sequencing in Nanopores"

The objective of this project is to develop a general utility instrument to provide inexpensive sequencing that can also be used for projects to recognize genome variation. The group will design novel nanopores articulated with probes to sequentially, and directly, identify nucleotides in very long fragments of genomic DNA based on their unique electronic signals.

Susan H. Hardin, Ph.D., VisiGen Biotechnologies, Inc., Houston.
$4.2 million (3 years)
"Real-Time DNA Sequencing"

This group is developing a sequencing system in which polymerase (an enzyme used to synthesize DNA molecules) and nucleotides act together as direct molecular sensors of DNA base identity. The key to the system is the interaction between a fluorescent polymerase and the nucleotide, which emits a signature detectable in real-time.

Xiaohua Huang, Ph.D., University of California, San Diego, La Jolla.
$750,000 (3 years)
"Massively Parallel Cloning and Sequencing of DNA"

The goal of this project is to develop two innovative technologies: massively parallel, whole-genome amplification and DNA sequencing by denaturation. The resulting system amplifies DNA directly on a microchip, enabling the process of sequencing to be done on a single miniaturized device.

Jingyue Ju, Ph.D., Columbia University, New York.
$970,000 (3 years)

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Source:NIH