Faster DNA Testing

tkjtkj writes "Physorg.com is reporting that a Rochester,NY, company, 'Thermal Gradients, Inc' has produced a new method of DNA analysis that can reduce the required time from hours to minutes that the usual 'Polymerase Chain Reacion' (PCR) takes to produce the large quantity of sample DNA needed to identify the donor. This could,conceivably, make "Instant DNA Identification" a reality! Will air travel now require one to arrive at the airport 5 minutes earlier than usual, to provide a skin-swab sample before boarding the plane?"

Only 5 minutes??

[SegFaultCM]

Only 5 minutes? No, check the math. Assume 100 people (though it could be FAR more). Each person needs 5 minutes, so you'd need to be there 500 minutes early (8 1/3 hours). I really doubt they'd have that many machines laying around, so multitasking the scans is an improbability.

What impact on UK ID cards

[Silver Sloth]

If, and it's a big if, this is not vapourware and near instant (a few minutes in TFA) DNA testing is near it's going to add a certain spin to the UK ID card debate. The current use of DNA testing only for major crimes could be extended to practically any crime. And if your DNA profile is on your ID card then placing people at crime scenes will become a doddle.

Ok, so only those who have something to hide have somethng to fear - yeah right - but it's a significant step towards the Brave New World

Re:Only 5 minutes??

[Exocrist]

I imagine that in a facility like an airport, with that many people, they'd have more than one line going. Something like an airport would probably have more than one machine.
However, that does raise an interesting point about the number of people who can be tested at once.

What about the research benefits?

[achesterase]

Of course, the OP did not mention the huge positive effects accelerated PCR will have on research (particularly in molecular biology and biochemistry). It's fine recognizing new technology's potential for misuse, but this article's summary is just plain FUD.

Tattoo us already

[Mononoke]

I don't know why they haven't just gone ahead and tattooed serial numbers on the inside of our forearms yet. There's not much difference in the final result.

When will they realize

[Elrac]

Confirming identity does nothing toward confirming non-terrorism. The attackers of 9/11 were fully legal American residents, maybe even citizens, and even the most expensive and invasive of identity tests would not have disclosed their terrorist intent.

Reasons why this would be considered for TSA purposes: (1) It will make some ignorant people feel more secure; (2) It will facilitate all kinds of other investigations, mostly related to the War On Drugs; (3) it will provide another opportunity for pork projects and kickbacks for government officials.

Insurance?

[Savage-Rabbit]

"Will air travel now require one to arrive at the airport 5 minutes earlier than usual, to provide a skin-swab sample before boarding the plane?"

I'd worry about other consequences of this technology. For example will it enable Insurance companies to more effectively bill you for every genetic disorder that you are N% more likely to get than the next guy? Yes it probably will, as soon as they refine it into a low cost, high volume, technology to test for various disease causing genes. Insurance companies are aching to use such cost effective genetic diagnostic technology to stick consumers in higher risk groups (which translates in being able to bill them more money) based on their likelyhood to get some genetically caused disease later on in life. There are already many people that are unensurable as a result of having some chronic disease and this technology will swell their numbers. People show no outward signs of a genetic predisposition to get some disease and seem perfectly healty today might become ill or even uninsurable in the future thanks to this technology.

Gary T. Marx

[daigu]

I recently read (Fall 2005) an interesting article in Dissent [dissentmagazine.org] magazine from Gary T. Marx on this issue called: "Soft Surveillance Mandatory Voluntarism and the Collection of Personal Data."

He makes a number of interesting observations on how DNA as a soft means for the collection of personal data - for example, where police go in and ask everyone in a community for a mouth swab "in order to solve a crime" or in airports as the poster suggests. Marx argues for a system based on clearly defined rules based on meaningful consent. These rules could center around questions like: Would the information collector be comfortable being the subject, rather than the agent, of surveillance if the situation were reversed?

Imagine for a moment a community database of DNA information and the potential for abuse. For example, a criminal might collect hair from a hair brush and plant it at the scene of a crime. Perhaps a swab might be a precondition for health insurance? Etc.

There are many potential problems with the widespread availability of DNA technology. It is also an issue many of us have not given a great deal of thought. Gary Marx [mit.edu] has some material available online like Technology and Social Control: The Search for the Illusive Silver Bullet [mit.edu].

If you know of other people addressing this issue that would be worth reading, please reply with a citation or link.

Re:Only 5 minutes??

[Killjoy_NL]

You really think they would only process 1 person at a time?

Gotta Love It....

[hotarugari]

You gotta love all these new technology companies that claim to have something so innovative that they have to slashdot it. And then when it's all said in done, it reads more like a headline story from the Enquirer or something. The product is supposed to clone people, remove unwanted hair, reverse the aging process, and create gateways into an alternate dimension. In the end however, and after really reading the press release, you're lucky if their so called discovery is capable of making Julianne fries.

Re:What about the research benefits?

[lukesl]

One of the big ones, if the device is small/portable/cheap, will be portable HIV testing for the third world. That will be a night and day difference. For research in labs that are already well-funded and stocked with equipment, it might speed things up a little, but I don't see anything obvious where it would be a huge change.

Re:Whoa giddy.

[rhombic]

The subject matter isn't confusing to me, at least. What we have here, folks, is a failure to communicate.

The heating/cooling process is not the rate limiting step in this reaction. Read that last part again if you don't get it. Taq, Pfu, all the other polymerases that are used for PCR are processive. The fastest possible way to duplicate a strand of DNA is to have a single copy of the polymerase run down that strand, making the copy strand as it goes along. There is only one priming site, so a given template can only be used to make one copy per cycle. And for all of the enzymes I'm familiar with, and I'm pretty familiar with this area, the rate is in the ballpark of 1min/ 1000 bp. The fastest system I'm familiar with, Stratagene's FullVelocity QPCR, takes about 1 hour to run a 40 cycle reaction. Regardless of what other posters may be saying in the thread, their product literature [stratagene.com] agrees with this number, so I'd suggest asking some of the other posters for documentation of their much faster qpcr numbers. There are ways you can speed it up by giving up some accuracy and sensitivity, but five minutes? Not unless you can warp time or suddenly make a thermostable enzyme do its thing 20-30x faster. In which case TFA wouldn't be talking about heating & cooling rates, but would be addressing their hugely better enzyme.