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> This thing actually lives up to the Ion Torrent promise. Are you sure of this? The video makes it sound like this thing is a sort of automated SNP chip, whic
by hyperbovine 14y ago
> This thing actually lives up to the Ion Torrent promise.
Are you sure of this? The video makes it sound like this thing is a sort of automated SNP chip, which is great, but is far less than what Ion Torrent is promising. You're getting a list of SNPs at known sites--no data on rare or novel variants. No sequence data also means you are powerless to detect any sort of structural variation.
- mjt0229 14y agoThat was my take as well, but the whole thing is so vague that it's hard to be sure.
- mylons 14y agoThose are valid points, and we can go further and debate how suitable Ion is as a platform even for novel and structural variants. However, in terms of what Ion promised early on, and the talks they gave at genetic sequencing conferences -- the chip is far from the complete machine. Maybe I'm getting a little too semantical here, but this panasonic device does everything on the chip.
- piqufoh 14y agoCorrect - Ion Torrent (and Oxford Nanopore) promised a `sequencer on a chip` and this isn't that, it's `PCR on a chip`. That said, PCR for known SNPs (breast cancer, alzheima's etc) in this timescale could revolutionise modern medicine (no hyperbole!)