Separating Cnromosomes

摘要

The clear rubber chip sitting under a microscope in Stephen Quakes lab is a complex maze of tiny channels, chambers, and pumps, hooked up to thin plastic tubes that supply reagents and control 650-plus minuscule valves. Using this microfluidic chip, Quake, a biophysicist at Stanford University, has engineered a way of obtaining data that's missing from nearly all human genome sequences: which member of a pair of chromosomes a gene belongs to. Technology that makes it easier to identify the variations between chromosomes could have a huge impact on fundamental genomic research and personalized medicine. "This is definitely the next frontier," says Nicholas Schork, a statistical geneticist at the Scripps Research Institute. Right now, he says, "we're missing out on all sorts of biological phenomena that occur as a result of humans' having [paired chromosomes]."