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Comment by koeng | Hacker News Reader

Yep that’s the one. They update the flow cells over time. The bit they don’t tell you is the stuff you need, like a qubit, to properly run the thing.

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A qubit or fluorometer isn't required. You can use a simple DNA ladder to measure the relative quantity and quality of DNA that's good enough for nanopore sequencing. I just did a full genome sequence of a novel fungus using this exact approach.

Huh, interesting. Did you fragment? I’d imagine comparison of high weight gDNA wouldn’t be too nice on a gel.

You also still, in that case, need a gelbox + ladder + loading dye + sybrsafe or whatever, so it’s still not nothing.

I did a HMW extraction kit on the DNA and used a gel to estimate the volume of HMW DNA. Yes, you need to be able to run a gel, but I'm not sure what the expectation is from folks; that you just place a random piece of non-sterile tissue on a chip and have it do the extraction, sequencing and assembly? That seems like an unrealistic expectation.

They do work on an extraction flowcell that can be added on top. I’m hoping they can make it as easy as adding sample to a well, at least for blood or saliva.

If you're talking about the voltrax, you still need to pipette reagents in at the right times. They don't really talk about it in their advertising, but it's basically just to make mixing consistent when you have under-trained techs. Definitely will get there eventually, but I don't know if they are working on that right now.

It is unrealistic but for laymen like me, that's the impression I got from the title.

So, for about 1000$ I can sequence my DNA at home without giving the data away?

You can get a usable partial genome at home using a minion (provided you have access to basic lab equipment and consumables, like pipettes, a microcentrifuge, gel electrophoresis kit) for about $2.5k, and a fairly decent one for $5k (about 22x coverage - not perfect but plenty for most purposes).

https://nanoporetech.com/about-us/news/human-genome-minion

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