LSU professor developing DNA sequencer for commercial use

There’s been some pretty exciting news regarding DNA technology coming from LSU’s campus in recent days—and it has absolutely nothing to do with former starting quarterback Jordan Jefferson. Rather, the name you need to know is LSU professor Steven Soper. He just received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop new DNA technologies that will rapidly sequence a person’s genome for $1,000 or less. “This will allow the doctor to prescribe appropriate medications for that patient’s disease, also known as personalized medicine,” Soper says. “The unique aspect of our tool is that it is being developed using strategies unique to LSU and conducive to large-scale production at low cost, meaning it will find immediate commercial opportunities.” Soper says the heart of the tool consists of a plastic card, about the size of a credit card, that contains structures 1/10,000th the size of a human hair and is manufactured using the same techniques applied when producing DVDs. According to the NIH, DNA sequencing costs have fallen dramatically in recent years. In 2009, sequencing tools cost about $100,000. Today, the cost to sequence a human genome using next-generation DNA sequencing technologies has dipped below $20,000. And if Soper has his druthers, the cost will drop to $1,000 or less by integrating biochemistry, chemistry and physics with engineering to develop the third generation of DNA sequencing and analysis technologies. —Jeremy Alford