Teardown of an Oxford Nanopore MinION DNA Sequencer

DNA sequencing used to require massive lab equipment, but technology has shrunk it down to a handheld device. Per Hackaday, the Oxford Nanopore MinION—released commercially in twenty fifteen—does exactly that for around two thousand dollars upfront. The real expense? Consumables. Those nanopore chips run six hundred ninety pounds each and are single-use. Inside sits a Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA paired with a microfluidics system that guides genetic samples over nanopores where the actual sequencing occurs. Though this model was discontinued, it showcases a broader trend: as these chips get smaller and simpler, costs keep plummeting.

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