October 20, 2023- Mayo Clinic and Oxford Nanopore Technologies, the company delivering a new generation of nanopore-based molecular sensing technology, unveiled a multi-year joint development collaboration to develop new clinical tests for diseases and improve patient care.
Mayo Clinic and Oxford Nanopore have identified several areas of development, spanning a wide breadth of applications from translational research in human genetics to detection of genetic predisposition to cancer.
Nanopore sequencing is well positioned to serve Mayo Clinic’s goals of improving testing in some of the hardest-to-characterize conditions. The ability to sequence any-length fragments of DNA — from short to long and ultra-long — and examine methylation in real time offers the potential to provide clinicians with a more complete picture of an evolving cancer genome quickly and accurately. Methylation is particularly important, as this typically requires bisulfite conversions and additional cost yet is key to unmasking crucial insights.