Meni Wanunu

Sponsor: NIH

Direct RNA sequencing using electro-optical zero mode waveguides and custom click fluorescent nucleotides

Reading the sequence and detecting the diversity of chemical modifications in RNA molecules would be a huge step forward for understanding the biology and disease-causing events in human cells. However, methods that can directly read single molecules are lacking, prompting us to develop an ultra-sensitive technology that directly reads RNA molecules, one at a time, at low-cost and with high throughput. Our method will an array of nanometer scale devices in which individual enzymes replicate RNA and report on the RNA sequence and presence of modifications, all from minute amounts that are equivalent to the number of RNA molecules in a single human cell.