Ciro Santilli @cirosantilli 37

DNA detection means determining if a specific DNA sequence is present in a sample.

This can be used to detect if a given species of microorganism is present in a sample, and is therefore a widely used diagnostics technique to see if someone is infected with a virus.

You could of course do full DNA Sequencing to see everything that is there, but since it is as a more generic procedure, sequencing is more expensive and slow.

The alternative is to use a DNA amplification technique.

DNA amplification is one of the key DNA technologies:

Big excitement picture at: molecular biology technologies.

A concrete experiment has been done at Section "Sequencing" on section sequencing.

As of 2018, Ciro Santilli believes that this could be the next big thing in biology technology.

"De novo" means "starting from scratch", that is: you type the desired sequence into a computer, and the synthesize it.

The "de novo" part is important, because it distinguishes this from the already well solved problem of duplicating DNA from an existing DNA template, which is what all our cells do daily, and which can already be done very efficiently in vitro with polymerase chain reaction.

Many companies are attempting to create more efficient de novo synthesis methods:

Notably, the dream of most of those companies is to have a machine that sits on a lab bench, which synthesises whatever you want.

TODO current de novo synthesis costs/time to delivery after ordering a custom sequence.

The initial main applications are likely going to be:but the real pipe dream is building and bootstraping entire artificial chromosomes

News coverage:

High level DNA studies? :-)

Ways in which it can happen: