In Texas, researchers learned that within five years, consumers may begin using a device smaller than a flip phone to monitor the air, test their food or diagnose what germ caused an upset stomach. A team of scientists from the U.K. and Canada taught a weeklong class using the minION – a genome sequencing system made by Oxford Nanopore Technology.
The minION is a hand-held device into which a sample is placed and then within minutes the sample’s genome is translated into a laptop. The device has already been used to battle ebola in the remote jungles of Guinea and to sample both mosquitoes and humans for the presence of Zika virus in northeastern Brazil.
While consumer applications are coming, the technology is being used in agriculture, natural resources and medicine. This low-cost technology on farms could determine the presence of pathogens before they do excessive damage to crops and livestock.