Breakthroughs in sequncing

Today's topic is off subject from DNA barcoding, however, the article i'll be talking about discusses a new device that is efficient for sequencing DNA. We all know by now that "DNA is the blueprint to life" and that RNA interprets it. The authors of this article state that the old sequencing technique wont work on molecules they called  "choose your own adventure genes". these genes are hard to sequence because each copy can be different from the next. Different forms of these genes are called isoforms and when these genes get chopped up the authors state that "it becomes impossible to compare the pieces". a new breakthrough in technology has made this impossible now possible. It is a nano sequencer called a MinION. developed by Oxford Nanopore, this device works by reading the bases 5 at a time, making a possible 1,024 possibilities that produce different electrical signals. The researchers at UConn then sequenced "the most complex choose-your-own-adventure gene, they chose the most complex one known, Down Syndrome cell adhesion molecule 1 (Dscam1)". this gene controls the wiring of fruit fly brains. The researchers took  the brain of a fruit fly, "extracted the RNA, converted it into DNA, isolated the DNA copies of the Dscam1 RNAs, and then ran them through the MinION's nanopores". The results of this experiment showed that "they not only found 7,899 of the 38,016 possible isoforms of Dscam1 were expressed but also that many more can be expressed". This break through is important not only because a complex gene was sequenced but that it showed that the MinION had much more potential. The MinION is brand new and is probably super expensive, but think of the possibilities that this new technique could introduce.