Tracking Ebola virus genomes with ultra-small device

A device about the size of a small chocolate bar could offer a way to sequence the genomes of viruses. When poor countries, with limited infrastructure, experience disease outbreaks – as happened with Ebola in West Africa – a device about the size of a small chocolate bar could offer a way to sequence the genomes of viruses and other pathogens right in those countries. The device, MinION, has been developed by Oxford Nanopore Technologies, a U.K. based company, and utilises a proprietary method for doing the sequencing. During a talk at the Molecular Virology Meeting that took place in Thiruvananthapuram recently, Thomas Hoenen, a postdoctoral researcher with the Laboratory of Virology at NIAD, in the U.S., gave a quick glimpse of using the device to sequence Ebola virus genomes in Liberia, one of the West African countries badly hit by the current outbreak. Such genome sequence information was “very important” for a number...