Oxford Nanopore, based in Oxford U.K., made a remarkable announcement that surprised many in February’s AGBT meeting in Marco Island. A GridION and MiniION single-molecule sequencers were announced, promising 15 minute runtimes, no sample preparation, and a disposable USB-stick sequencer for $900 (in the case of the MiniION), with 50kb long readlengths (and 100kb promised) at only a 4% error rate it appears to be a dream come true for many research challenges that await.
One of the great privileges of working on the marketing side of a life sciences company (compared to the sales side) is the ability to go to a lot of conferences. As a sales representative, it was a hit-or-miss affair, whether I’d be one of the ‘chosen ones’ to go to AGBT, ASHG (now called ICHG), or ABRF.
(For those who are not in genomics, AGBT = Advances in Genome Biology and Technology; ASHG = American Society for Human Genetics; ABRF = Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities.)
And for a sales rep, it’s a difficult task; you encounter potential customers from many quarters, increasing the sales footprint for the company as a whole, but not so rewarding for your own particular territory. On top of that, you can’t participate in the science per-se, but certainly will have other opportunities to interact with the conference attendees, and glean some of the ‘take-home’ lessons second-hand, if they are so inclined to ask.