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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

Virginia Commonwealth University researchers have developed a new technique for analyzing DNA molecules [phys.org]. Their new research article, "Infrared laser heating applied to nanopore sensing for DNA duplex analysis," suggests the possibility for improving forensic DNA workflows for more rapid and accurate identification. The article was published in the journal Analytical Chemistry and appeared online on Feb. 19.

"We are interested in increasing the number of parameters that researchers can tune in order to study small DNA molecules," said Joseph Reiner, Ph.D., assistant professor of physics in the College of Humanities and Sciences. "Laser heating has been used in the past, so we applied this methodology to our nanopore technique and found it was effective at discriminating between different sized DNA fragments."

Nanopore sensing allows researchers to learn about the physical and chemical properties of molecules in solution. A nanopore is a little hole with an ionic current. When it's introduced in a solution sample, DNA molecules from the solution drift through it, causing the current to change. Based on the current change and also the length of time the molecule dwells in the nanopore, researchers get information about the molecule. In this case, the researchers were interested in analyzing the size of the molecules.

Heating the nanopores, where DNA is measured, with an infrared laser allows faster processing of DNA fragments, which can often lodge in them.

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