Oxford Nanopore Technologies plc is a UK-based company which develops and sells nanopore sequencing products (including the portable DNA sequencer, MinION) for the direct, electronic analysis of single molecules.[2][3] It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.[4]
The company was founded in 2005 as a spin-out from the University of Oxford by Hagan Bayley,[5] Gordon Sanghera, and Spike Willcocks, with seed funding from the
In March 2016 the company announced a chemistry upgrade to its nanopore sequencing product 'R9', using a protein nanopore in collaboration with the laboratory of Han Remaut (VIB/Vrije Universiteit Brussel).[8] The company stated in a webcast that R9 is designed to improve error rates and yield.[9]
In July 2016, a MinION nanopore sequencer was included on the ninth NASA/SpaceX commercial cargo resupply services mission to the International Space Station.[10] The aim of the mission was to provide proof of concept for the MinION's functionality in a microgravity environment.[11] During the mission, ISS crew members successfully sequenced DNA from bacteria, bacteriophage and rodents from samples prepared on Earth.[12] Maintaining the MinION device as a research facility on the space station holds the potential to support a number of additional science investigations, any of which could have Earth based applications.[13]
The main products of Oxford Nanopore are:
These products are intended to be used for the analysis of DNA, RNA, proteins and small molecules with a range of applications in personalized medicine, crop science, and scientific research.[14][28]
