New DNA sequencing technologies are expected to bring the cost of sequencing a human genome into a range that is affordable for diagnosis and prognosis related to individual patients. The ability to harvest massive amounts of sequence information from many individual humans as well as many other organisms at very low cost (<$1,000/human genome) will greatly facilitate and accelerate the identification of functionally important genomic elements, the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease, the development of therapeutics, the prediction of drug response, and explorations in all realms of the biological sciences.

The goal of the $1,000 genome technology program at NIH is to bring this capability to fruition within the next 5 to 10 years (Schloss, J., Nat. Biotech. 26,1113-1115 (2008)). Scientists funded under this program recently published an article (Branton, D., et al., Nat. Biotech.26,1146-1153 (2008)) that lays out key technical challenges confronting the implementation of nanopore sequencing – one promising approach to achieving this goal. A key purpose for the article is to broaden the discussion, so that scientists and engineers who may understand how to overcome these challenges could be made aware of the need for those solutions.

The aim of this Forum is to promote discussion around the challenges of nanopore sequencing, to encourage problem solving, and to foster new avenues for research and collaboration towards more efficient nanopore sequencing. *Nanopore researchers, including the authors of the above article, will be participating in this forum.

We invite you to join the discussion here and post your thoughts on the following 3 key technology challenges–whether they are framed correctly, whether you have specific questions about the challenges, and solutions you think may exist but are not being explored.

1. controlling (or coping with) the dynamics of DNA passing through a nanopore (discussion thread here)
2. issues that are specific to protein nanopores, in particular how proteins can be modified to improve resolution and recognition of nucleobases (discussion thread here)
3. issues specific to solid state nanopores, such as challenges of lithography or surface modification (discussion thread here)

You can refer to Nat. Biotech. 26,1146 and articles cited there for a more complete discussion and background.

Finally, I’ve added one more forum: a place to debate the many different proposed readout schemes for nanopore sequencing.