Rosemary Sinclair Dokos, the SVP of Product and Programme Management at Oxford Nanopore Technologies, presented an updated at the Nanopore Community Meeting in Singapore 2023. They considered this a mid-year update since their major updates were during London Calling 2023. Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) strives for “Towards the Sequencing of Anything by Anyone Anywhere.” Sinclair Dokos noted that they provide updates every year. The Q20+ and kit 14 chemistry are some of their highlights. Sinclair Dokos explained the breadth of applications of ONT sequencing. They now want to simplify protocols. For PromethION flow cells, 100 Gbases of output are what is now expected. Q20+ and DNA modification data in CpG contexts are improving. 5mC and others are being integrated into MinKNOW. Simplex consensus accuracy for bacterial assemblies and consideration of modifications. Sinclair Dokos explained that Dorado basecalling is now available in MinKNOW, and there are numerous improvements allowing for Mac users to do more. They mentioned that in 2024, raw data storage will be an option in MinKNOW. While storage is an issue, I appreciate having the raw reads to re-basecall. Duplex sequencing produces Q30+. Duplex has been improved so that on one PromethION flow cell one can obtain 50 Gbases of duplex and 40+ of simplex (Q20+). There are high-duplex flow cells and conditions. ONT is working to integrate duplex in MinKNOW this year. R9.4 flow cells and chemistry will be discontinued. Direct RNA sequencing will be improved with the new kit RNA 004. Sinclair Dokos explained that they are working on E2E – end-to-end protocols. They now have over 70 extraction protocols and numerous EPI2ME workflows. ONT has also developed “locked down” protocols for routine tasks including plasmid sequencing. I want to read this protocol. The last slide of the presentation had the Turbot and TraxION instruments and other improvements ONT is working on. These updates help me plan on what to focus on next when it comes to library prep and analyses.
