Science: Health: Genetics
Cheaper DNA tests   (+1)  [vote for, against]

Which sounds better £46 or £115.83?

Now the NMRM Corp tie-in with DNA-WPR*, you need only take a swab, send the sample to a lab in Knoxville, Tenn. and have peace of mind!!!

Later edit - Ah, I forgot to include the actual point of the idea. It's expensive to get DNA tests for ancestry websites, so this might be a cheap way to do it.

(exchange rates are a ruff calculation)

(*DNA World Pet Registry)
-- not_morrison_rm, Feb 20 2019

There's an even cheaper way. Just walk into any police station and say "I'd just like to mention that I was in no way involved in this recent spate of murders", and they'll have you profiled in no time.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 20 2019


Full genome? The police have enough paperwork.
-- wjt, Feb 20 2019


Probably not, but then again dog testing kits only cover a fraction of the [canine] genome.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 21 2019


Ah, I forgot to include the actual point of the idea. It's expensive to get DNA tests for ancestry websites, so this might be a cheap way to do it.

But, finding out me and Lassie have 57 points of congruence isn't really that useful.
-- not_morrison_rm, Feb 21 2019


Yeah, life's a bitch ...
-- 8th of 7, Feb 21 2019


I was dreaming we can get a better price and speed by getting an uncoiled chromatid to flow, in a microfluidic channel , past a reader section, measuring the nucleotide cogs. Attaching a large molecule to one end of the chromatid and by using gravity, might 'train' it's length down a column through some sort of base discriminating sensor. Position and base relative to the chromatid would be maintained.
-- wjt, Feb 21 2019


Measuring the cogs is the hard part. However, Oxford Nanopore's execrable technology sort of does this (though not for whole chromosomes, and with abysmally low accuracy).
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 21 2019


After a cursory look, my initial feeling is the electronic state of the nanopore needs to be known more accurately to get a better read. I suggest, some molecular groups attached to the nanopore with their own reading layer to help with the a baseline. Just more data to get a better look.

The positional charges on the DNA atoms would be variable within a range , would they not?
-- wjt, Feb 23 2019


The problem with nanopore sequencing is that the pore is several nucleotides long. Hence, the signal at any instant is sort of averaged over several bases.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 23 2019


What happens when I get the results and it shows I'm prone to hard pad?
-- not_morrison_rm, Feb 23 2019


[not_morrison_rm] Nothing a good soak/whiskey can't fix but check your not feeling an ill temper.

[Max]Is several still small enough to be listed? It is interesting trying to read a changing section of a flow to try and determine subunits. I did have another wonder, whether light or another energy form could used lightly to condition the read environment so the nucleotides have a more determining signal.
-- wjt, Feb 23 2019


// several still small enough to be listed?// I think it's something like 5 or 10. You can recover sequence data, but the raw error rate is something horrendous like 10%, which makes it useless for many applications.

//whether light or another energy form could used lightly to condition the read environment so the nucleotides have a more determining signal// I have no idea what that means.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 23 2019


Doesn't the signal have to range more widely and cleanly to remove raw read errors? chilling a magnet will will give a stronger field.

Is there a way of accentuating the charges to give a better resolve? Make the strand flow through an environmental change to which each base reacts with a stronger difference to compared to the others. Magnetism, light field, temperature. It would be good if it was like a photocopier, impart charge to strand, print it off at sensor.

I must say, great work having a mechanism that can capture a strand and flow it's long length through an known volumetric space. It's just a matter of time before the reader becomes accurate enough.
-- wjt, Feb 24 2019


//accentuating the charges// it's not based on charge per se. Instead, they measure the current flowing through the pore; that current is reduced by the DNA, and the amount of reduction depends on which bases are in the pore.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 24 2019


So its all about the base?

Doesn't seem like any treble at all, then.
-- RayfordSteele, Feb 24 2019


There's only 10% tremble when the DNA rubs off with some of the charge.

I still think, because of DNA's sole purpose, a near 100% accurate read should be possible.

My hope is for a stack of carbon nanosheets that can have a multiple reads as the DNA spirals through even though base gap is 0.34 nm or 3.4 Å and carbon sheets range from 1 to 100nm plus insulator distance. Theoretically the gap between reader sheets should not matter.

Though if the animal DNA full genome sequence price drops I will use that.
-- wjt, Feb 25 2019



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