Abstracts: 

 SBIR-Phase II 



A Novel, Low-Cost System for Automated DNA 

 Sequence Reading* 



John West 



BioAutomation. Inc.. Bridgeport. PA 19405 

 (215)275-4540 



Analytical instruments tor the automated measurement of DNA are just emerging. 

 Automated sequence readers commercialized to date are expensive (over $90,000 per 

 instrument). As a result, in more than 10,000 sequencing laboratories worldwide, fewer 

 than 3% have acquired such instrumentation. Because of the high cost, adoption of 

 automated DNA-sequencing instrumentation has been slow even though interest in the 

 technology is high. First-generation sequence readers also lack the throughput required 

 for large-scale sequencing projects. Technological feasibility of an autoradiography- 

 based approach incorporating the use of application-specific, highly integrated circuits 

 and parallel processing was demonstrated in Phase 1. During Phase II. full working 

 prototypes will be developed using this approach. These prototypes will ( 1 ) provide a 

 significant increase in accessibility of automated sequence-reading equipment to smaller 

 laboratories, and (2) provide the quantum jump in throughput required by large-scale 

 sequencing projects. 



Being proprietary, the specific technical approach to be followed is omitted from this 

 abstract. 



* 1989 award for two years. 



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