NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Oxford Nanopore Technologies has licensed technology developed at the University of California, Santa Cruz, with applications in single-molecule DNA sequencing and molecular sensing, the company said today.
The firm also has agreed to fund research programs conducted by the UCSC scientists who developed the nanopore technology, David Deamer and Mark Akeson.
Oxford Nanopore said its first generation of nanopore sequencing “is poised to be the first label-free DNA sequencing system,” which could offer “a dramatic improvement” in the speed and cost of sequencing.
“A label-free approach to DNA sequencing would facilitate a transformation in genomics that could be likened to the broadband revolution," Oxford Nanopore CEO Gordon Sanghera said in a statement.
The agreement with UCSC follows a deal that the company announced earlier this month in which it licensed intellectual property related to nanopore technology from Harvard University.
The Harvard agreement included “some discoveries” from UCSC, Oxford Nanopore said.
The company also said today that it has formed a technical advisory board that is composed of nanopore researchers, including Deamer and Akeson, who will help the company develop its BASE sequencing technology, which combines a biological nanopore with a processive enzyme arrayed on a silicon chip. The company said its future sequencing technologies could involve solid-state nanopores, or may analyze single stranded nucleic acids.
Financial terms of the agreement were not released.