A young man named Aspyn Palatnick, now 22, has spent the last eight years programming the world’s first mobile genome sequence analyzer. He started the project as a 14-year-old high school intern in Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) under Adjunct Associate Professor Michael Schatz’s lead. The invention makes DNA analysis accessible anywhere in the world and portable.
The finished product is a new iPhone app called iGenomics. To create a mobile genetics laboratory (like Star Trek’s tricorder), all you have to do is download the app and pair the iPhone to a handheld DNA sequencer. iGenomics runs entirely on the iOS device. The setup is convenient for ecology and pandemic workers as it eliminates the need for large equipment or laptops in the field.
The CSHL lab began developing iGenomics to complement Oxford Nanopore’s tiny DNA sequencing device. When Palatnick first joined the Schatz laboratory, he was already building iPhone apps.
They realized that:
As the sequencers continued to get even smaller, there were no technologies available to let you study that DNA on a mobile device. Most of the studying of DNA: aligning, analyzing, is done on large server clusters or high-end laptops. Scientists studying pandemics are flying in suitcases full of Nanopores and laptops and other servers to do that analysis in the remote fields.
iGenomics helps researchers by making genome studies more affordable, portable, and accessible. Users can even AirDrop sequencing data to one another without internet access, allowing them to conduct research at the most remote locations possible.
Schatz envisions iGenomics soon finding its way into the hands of astronauts. He said:
There’s a lot of interest to do DNA sequencing in space. I’m trying to see if there’s a way we can get iGenomics up there. There’s a lot of people that are interested in doing that. It’s a real testament about how it would be impossible to do, you know, any sort of analysis on regular computers. It’s just impossible to bring them with you.
And eventually, the device will become as common as a built-in camera in a smartphone. It could be just as useful for citizens as field workers. Schatz continued:
Today, we all carry professional cameras in our pockets, so it’s not that hard to imagine in the next couple of years, all of us carrying our own DNA sequencers on our smartphones, as well. There are just so many opportunities to do measurements of our environment and look for pathogens, maybe even do scans of yourself.
The iGenomic algorithm can map viral pathogens’ DNA sequences quickly. For example, it can sequence a flu virus and identify mutations necessary for diagnosis and treatment. The app includes an online tutorial for analyzing viral genomes.
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