Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd is developing a disruptive, proprietary technology platform for the direct, electronic analysis of single molecules. The technology is adaptable for the analysis of DNA, RNA, proteins, small molecules and other types of molecules. Consequently the platform has a broad range of potential applications including scientific research, personalised medicine, crop science and security/defence.
Brief information about the Company and its technology is shown below. For greater detail please browse the rest of our website.
What is Oxford Nanopore Technologies?
The Company was founded in 2005 on the science of Professor Hagan Bayley of the University of Oxford. In 2008 the Company created a series of collaborations with world-leading nanopore researchers at other institutions including Harvard, University of California Santa Cruz, Boston University and more. Oxford Nanopore continues to collaborate with researchers and these collaborations combine with the company's in-house expertise and intellectual property.
The management team, led by CEO Dr Gordon Sanghera, has a track record of delivering disruptive technologies to the market. Oxford Nanopore is based at the Oxford Science Park outside Oxford, UK. Our multidisciplinary team includes more than 100 scientists, engineers and informaticians. The company is fast-moving, dynamic, and proud of the excellence of its employees. For career opportunities click here.
What is a nanopore?
A nanopore is a very small hole. The first generation of Oxford Nanopore's GridION technology uses a pore-forming protein to create holes in membranes formed from lipid bilayers. Future generations of nanopore-based sensing technology may combine protein nanopores with membranes made from synthetic materials or be composed of pores in synthetic materials such as silicon nitride or graphene ("solid-state" nanopores). Oxford Nanopore has collaborations and a broad intellectual property estate in all of these areas.
What does the platform technology consist of?
The platform technology, GridION, includes an instrument (a node) and a consumable cartridge that includes an arrayed sensor chip containing multiple microwells and a bespoke ASIC. A bilayer membrane is formed over the surface of these wells and the modified protein nanopores are introduced into these bilayers. Each well is a single addressable electronic channel and each nanopore is capable of individual identification of analyte molecules. Future generations of the platform will evolve in a variety of ways for greater performance and scalability.
Oxford Nanopore has also built data analysis and bioinformatics tools to enable a simple end to end workflow.
How does nanopore sensing work?
A nanopore may be used to identify an analyte by measuring a current through the pore. When an analyte of interest passes through the pore or near to its aperture, it creates a characteristic disruption in current. This disruption may be used to identify the molecule in question, without the need for optical labelling. More.
How does nanopore DNA sequencing work?
Oxford Nanopore is developing two techniques for DNA sequencing: 'strand sequencing' and 'exonuclease sequencing'.
In strand sequencing, a protein nanopore is combined with an enzyme designed to pass a single strand of DNA through a protein nanopore, enabling identification of the bases in sequence. More.
In exonuclease sequencing, a protein nanopore is combined with a processive enzyme which cleaves individual bases from the end of a DNA strand. As these single bases pass through the nanopore, their identity is determined by analysis of the disruption in current. This is scaled up through using multiple channels, each containing a single well. More.
What are the benefits of using nanopores to sequence DNA?
In contrast to current sequencing technologies, nanopores can analyse single molecules directly, without the need for nucleic acid amplification, chemical labelling, optical instrumentation and the need to convert photon signals into digital data. The system will be scalable as single nanopores can be set within individual wells in an arrayed silicon chip. Only with nanopores can electronic data be streamed in real time, so that experimental analyses are performed as the experiment progresses and the user can "Run Until..." their biological question is answered.
This elegant and scalable technology has the potential to deliver new benefits in DNA sequencing, including speed and cost, but also simplicity and versatility. Recent interest in the 'race for the $1000 genome' underlines the medical and research needs for a sequencing technology that is so affordable and accessible that research and understanding of the genome will increase exponentially. This is expected to drive new developments in healthcare, agriculture, energy, evolutionary biology and many other fields.
What else can the proprietary platform be used for?
Oxford Nanopore is developing a modular technology. By adapting the nanopore within the overall sensing platform, it is possible to detect a variety of molecules. For example, nanopores may be used to detect proteins, small molecules or polymers. Development work is being conducted in these areas.