Bioengineers develop smallest DNA sequencer

May 9, 2006 –
Bioengineering Graduate Group member and UC Berkeley Professor of Chemistry Richard Mathies and BioE graduate student Robert Blazej have developed the smallest ever DNA sequencing device, only 10cm in diameter. The handheld sequencer needs just one femtomole of DNA and only a tiny amount of expensive chemical reagents to combine three main DNA sequencing steps: thermal cycling, sample purification and capillary electrophoresis. The research was is the cover story for the May 9, 2006 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The tiny DNA sequencer uses a network of microscopic pumps, valves, heaters and electrophoresis channels, many of which were originally developed for a device to detect life on Mars. Mathies, Blazej and co-investigator Palani Kumaresan of Mechanical Engineering, adapted the technology to Sanger sequencing, the primary method of DNA sequencing. Sanger sequencing is currently expensive and requires a device about the size of a refrigerator.

The new Berkeley sequencer is the first lab-on-a-chip device that can carry out all of the many chemical steps needed to sequence DNA, including copying DNA fragments, purifying them, and adding fluorescent tags, and it does so at accuracy nearly the same as conventional machines. The breakthrough could drop costs from $22 million to $50,000 to sequence a genome.

This research was also featured in the PNAS early edition on 4/28/06, Chemistry World on 4/25/06, Science Now by AAAS on 4/26/06, and The Scientist, Magazine of the Life Sciences on 4/25/06.