Otago sequences DNA on-site

Researchers at Otago University in New Zealand have unveiled Freedom4, a battery-powered, handheld device that can detect viruses and bacteria in samples in real-time. The device is also able to identify the level of infection.

Freedom4 uses a technology known as quantitative polymerase chain reaction, which amplifies a targeted DNA molecule so that it can be detected. Originally developed in 1983, the process uses a limited number of copies of DNA and generates up to several million copies so that the piece of DNA can be detected more easily. This process up until now happened in a laboratory thanks to a device called thermal cycler, which puts a sample through 25 to 40 temperature shifts.

Otago’s device achieves all of these functions while being no bigger than a brick and wheighing roughly as much as a laptop. Freedom4 is able, for example, to detect a norovirus within an hour, on site and without the need for staff to return to a lab first to analyse the samples.

A prototype of the device has been fully tested by New Zealand’s Institute of Environmental and Scientific Research. The technology will be commercialised by Otago Innovation, the university’s technology transfer office, through a company called Ubiquitome. The research team are expecting to market the device to a wide range of sectors from border security to forensics to environmental monitoring.

Jo-Ann Stanton, who led the research team, said: “This mobility could provide a great boon for farmers. For instance, vets could drive around a farm analysing samples from various locations, make their diagnoses and treat infected animals – all in one trip. We are immensely proud that we have created this brilliant device; there is currently no other system in the world that compares in terms of the analytical power we have achieved at this level of mobility and ease of use.”