[ymc]

Okay, this is anecdotal, but my wife was at an NIH awardees meeting in Washington a few months ago. This was for an education grant. One of the plenary speakers was Francis Collins. During his talk he held up a device about the size of a thumb drive and made some comments about the rapid progress of sequencing.

The weird thing was that he referred to this device as an Ion Torrent. But after the talk, as he was leaving the room, my wife asked him -- is than a MinIon? And he said that it was.

--
Phillip

Is this "MinIon" a working prototype or just a cute toy?

[pmiguel]

[...] can't keep his ions straight.

Actually, now that I think of it, why is ONT using "ion" in their device names? The Ion Torrent is a fairly well established brand, but completely different in mechanism from the Min/GridIon. Also, if I were picking a word to describe ONT devices it would not be "Ion", it would be "Pore". Strange, really.

--
Phillip

[ulz_peter]

They actually always write MinION which looks like an acronym (maybe the N stands for Nanopore). Just guessing though

[Elcannibal]

Did Collins start saying the same old story about walking into a white room, with your DNA on an iPhone and selecting your correct anti cancer drug from a list with your doctor ? That is the same old tired story he told 15 years ago and promised ten years ago... That guy needs to stop zoning on the technology. The technology is only a boom for one thing, seeing manufacturer kill each other on a bankrupcy race. I am sure right now ONT has been sitting in boardrooms for months asking "guys, how are we going to actually make money from this ?????" Instead of "Guys, how can we translate this into a real clinical workflow".

This nerd race is going no where... No wonder a lot of leaders... are starting to show flat revenues... Collins not helping one bit here, he needs to keep the toys in his pockets and talk about health and cancer prevention. Can't wait for that generation to just move along into retirement...

[pmiguel]

Wow. Feeling a little angst there Elcannibal?

So, just to be clear that little story I posted was not meant to be anti-Collins. Nor do I think your extremely negative comments about Collins and ONT are warranted.

This is science, not a TV show. There don't need to be villains to make it interesting.

--
Phillip

[Elcannibal]

Pure hype is not science. Sequencing, I might argue with you, be it on a USB stick or through a 800K behemoth is nowhere near science. All the best to ONT, it's just not a business model that holds.

[cibertech]

Hello Elcannibal.

I do believe that sequencing is a part science, and it’s already helping people to perform deep studies on cancer, for example. I also believe it will have a bigger impact in the future. Nevertheless, as I stated before, it’s just a part of science. It’s not going to do everything like a magic trick, the same way that a computer, by itself, doesn’t do much. The person behind it has to use it for a good purpose, and the computer is just part of the process of, lets say, creating a mechanical part, for example. Of course, we live in a capitalist world, and everything must be done to be profitable, so companies cannot stick on just doing what is best for science. They must please the share holders as well. So, a compromise between the two must always be achieved. But saying that sequencing is not part of science is the same thing as saying that a computer is not part of mechanical engineering, just because the computer cannot, by itself, create the mechanical part (although that might not be true anymore, with 3D printers...).

Best regards

Ezequiel

[ymc]

Hello Elcannibal.

I do believe that sequencing is a part science, and it’s already helping people to perform deep studies on cancer, for example. I also believe it will have a bigger impact in the future. Nevertheless, as I stated before, it’s just a part of science. It’s not going to do everything like a magic trick, the same way that a computer, by itself, doesn’t do much. The person behind it has to use it for a good purpose, and the computer is just part of the process of, lets say, creating a mechanical part, for example. Of course, we live in a capitalist world, and everything must be done to be profitable, so companies cannot stick on just doing what is best for science. They must please the share holders as well. So, a compromise between the two must always be achieved. But saying that sequencing is not part of science is the same thing as saying that a computer is not part of mechanical engineering, just because the computer cannot, by itself, create the mechanical part (although that might not be true anymore, with 3D printers...).

Best regards

Ezequiel

Well said. I think Elcannibal probably thinks computer-related or sequencing-related stuff is engineering not science.

Science is by definition something theoretical and not useful. But you need science to drive engineering. Science also needs engineering to drive it nowadays as some of its problems are intractable without the help of machines.

[pmiguel]

Also, there is some bitterness as a subtext. Some complaint.

Maybe a (fairly high-functioning) troll, just trying to punch the right buttons?

What is the complaint? Companies are not doing real science, all they care about is profits? But also, a criticism about how their business model is defective or non-existent. The two halves of the complaint would not seem compatible. Either you paint a company as a money-grubbing entity with no true interest in the product they are selling or it is some pie-in-the-sky start-up incapable of making a dollar for its investors.

If you are invoking both at the same time -- yeah, that would make it a troll.

I guess I am not a fan of the bitter-angsty troll. But that doesn't mean they have no purpose on a forum like this one.

The thing is, as I ranted earlier, ONT really played "us" like a fiddle during AGBT. Gave us zero raw data, but got us to add to their hype-stream. I could say "bad on them" for that. But, they have their agenda. Really I think it is was "bad on us" for not calling them on it right at AGBT. Yeah, I wasn't there. I can't say I would have reacted any differently. But, since it worked, that is an encouragement to other groups who might want to do the same thing.

--
Phillip

[Elcannibal]

I'm not bitter, I condone hype. There has been too much of it lately, scientists have been jumping on ridiculous marketing, aligning themselves with companies and technologies, rather than disease. The holy grail is not coming, it's just that simple.

[cibertech]

Hello Elcannibal.

I totally agree with you on this point. (Remember when the first "human genome in 15 minutes" was first promised and how many times? I cannot even remember any more...)
However, this fact alone does not make sequencing invaluable and certainly does not mean sequencing is not part of science. As I stated before, we live in a capitalist world, and this is just a reflection of it.

Ezequiel

[GW_OK]

Hey everybody, the first bit of ON news in a long while:

[The New York Genome Center] also intends to place other new technologies at the pilot lab. "We are talking to Oxford Nanopore, for example, about becoming an early-access center for their technology," Kelley said.

source

I guess second hand news is better than nothing, if anything it lets us know that ON is not completely dead....

[ymc]

Hey everybody, the first bit of ON news in a long while:


source

I guess second hand news is better than nothing, if anything it lets us know that ON is not completely dead....

NYGC is calling ONT bluff?

[zaratieg]

Hey everybody, the first bit of ON news in a long while:


source

I guess second hand news is better than nothing, if anything it lets us know that ON is not completely dead....

I guess it means they still exist. But in terms of ETA, I read this as "we are so far from release date that we are not even actively looking for beta testers, and NYGC, which is only slightly less pie-in-the-sky than us, is the one that is asking to try our toys"

[bbeitzel]

I saw a while back that ONT is hiring FASs (http://www.nanoporetech.com/careers/job-centre/view/144). I took that as a sign that they were getting close to commercial launch, but maybe I am just naive / overly optimistic.