An ambitious unicorn hopes to up-end DNA analysis

GENETICISTS LIKE to compare progress in their field with the breakneck speed of innovation in computing. There, large, slow mainframes developed into fast, midsized desktops and then into the pocket-sized supercomputers known as smartphones. Similarly, the sequencing of the first human genome was announced, amid great pomp and fanfare, in 2003. It had taken 13 years and cost around $3bn. Two decades on, sequencing a human genome will set you back around $600, and might be done within a week.Gordon Sanghera, boss of Oxford Nanopore, a firm based in the eponymous British university town, thinks, however, there is room for more. As went to press his company was set to make its debut on the London Stock Exchange. Its technology, nanopore sequencing, can cut the cost of gene analysis and reduce the time involved from days to hours or even minutes. At the same time, just as smartphones did with computing, it can make gene sequencers small enough to fit in a pocket rather than on a desktop.