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Apr 7, 2021

Glass nanopore pulls DNA like spaghetti through a needle

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, futurism

Research led by UC Riverside is making it easier to detect and capture DNA from fluid samples such as blood using a tiny glass tube and . The technique, described in the journal Nanoscale, can also improve cancer diagnosis in the future.

DNA, a double-stranded, electrically charged molecule that contains all the information an organism needs to create and organize the building blocks of life, is tightly folded within the . Extracting the DNA from a is time consuming and impractical for many medical and scientific purposes. Fortunately, as die naturally, their membranes burst, releasing the contents, including DNA. This means that a blood , for example, contains many strands of free-floating DNA that should, in theory, be easier to identify and extract in quantity.

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