Comment by jasongill
Unfortunately, the "MinION Starter Kit" for $1000 appears to no longer be available; the link in the article to the kit goes to a 404 page, and the cheapest MinION device with flow cells is now $4950 USD
Unfortunately, the "MinION Starter Kit" for $1000 appears to no longer be available; the link in the article to the kit goes to a 404 page, and the cheapest MinION device with flow cells is now $4950 USD
These are by no means a new product. I think the early prototypes for these possibly predate the microUSB plug.
The brochures always showed it next to a completely non-sterile laptop, but it never made sense. It's fundamentally a bio lab equipment, just small. You probably should be wiping the package with disinfectant, use DNA-cides as needed, or follow whatever bioscience people consider the basic common sense hygiene standards.
> The brochures always showed it next to a completely non-sterile laptop
This can be done in the field (read near a lot of dirt). This does not require sterility at all. The main problems with this are keeping your prep clean (which is different from sterile; primarily involves not getting bubbles where they shouldn't be etc.) and temperature/salt handling.
> These are by no means a new product. I think the early prototypes for these possibly predate the microUSB plug. > You probably should be wiping the package with disinfectant, use DNA-cides as needed, or follow whatever bioscience people consider the basic common sense hygiene standards.
The consumable product is what needs to be stored carefully. Its delivered DNA-free; no disinfectant is needed. It's actually hard for accidental DNA to be introduced at the sequencing step; that would usually reflect poor practices earlier on.
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