1. MinION- the gene sequenser

A palm-sized gene sequencer called MinION, has been developed by  UK-based Oxford Nanopore Technologies.  This is a portable  device capable of sequencing relatively small stretches of nucleic acids and hence useful in sequencing small genomes. It can be plugged  into the USB port of a laptop, to display data on the screen as they are generated, unlike the conventional sequencers which display the data at the end of a run that can take days. Used for ebola virus sequencing at Guinea by researchers of University of Birmingham, UK.