Pocket-sized scanner helps fill gaps in the human genome

We’ve yet to finish sequencing the entire human genome – but we have just filled in a few of the remaining gaps thanks to a tiny, cheap DNA sequencer.

Some parts of the human genome consist of short sequences repeated over and over again. Conventional DNA sequencing methods can only read a few hundred DNA letters at a time, so it has not been possible to fully sequence the most repetitive stretches of DNA – little pieces can be sequenced but there is no way to join these pieces up…