There are many infrastructure challenges in the field of bioinformatics due to the scale of the data that is produced.
The Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) Human Genomics Group have worked closed with REANNZ to come up with a solution for portable, in-the-field genomics sequencing.
Breakthrough technologies are helping researchers to create new ways to sequence huge amounts of genetic data quickly. ESR researchers are innovating these technologies to be able to remotely sequence genomes far from the lab, improving treatment times and helping communities keep their people and environments safe.
The Human Genomics Group are collaborating with international partners to make portable sequencing technologies readily available to the research community. Senior bioinformatician, Dr Miles Benton leads the research into portable sequencing. It uses technology from Oxford Nanopore that sequences genomes using less compute power. It lets researchers perform genome sequencing in any environment by making it easy and portable.
Long read genomics sequencing produces large amounts of data. Nanopore devices can generate gigabytes of data every few hours, the larger GridION sequencers that ESR have onsite generate up to four terabytes a day.
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