A biochemical DNA nanoscope that identifies and localizes over a hundred unique molecular features with nanometer accuracy

Sukanya Punthambaker (a post-doc fellow at the Department of genetics, Harvard Medical School), starts her talk by discussing the trade-off between resolution and multiplexing at the nanoscale. The novel termed 'DNA Nanoscope' can identify multiple targets at nanoscale resolution for spatial mapping of each target. The basis of the nanoscope is the in situ primer exchange reaction (PER) enabling autonomous synthesis of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA). Two targets are labelled with DNA handles with recorded DNA primers. The PER takes place between the primers elongating 2 different ssDNA arms. The arms randomly meet, hybridise and extend creating a distance record, which is released into solution. MinION is then used to identify the short DNA molecules (100 bp - 1000 bp).