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gringer writes:

I was a speaker at the TEDxWellington 2016 [tedxwellington.com] conference on 6th March. The conference was the first public event that was held inside Peter Jackson's private cinema at Park Road Post Production in Miramar, Wellington, New Zealand.

The theme of the conference was trust, and I (together with all other speakers and crew) was trusted not to tell anyone about my role in it until I had finished talking. Attendees were transported from a meeting place at the National War Memorial to the venue in buses that had been blacked out:

https://twitter.com/tedxwellington/status/705867267221778432 [twitter.com]

Due to an enclosed fabric tunnel, the cinema inside the venue was the first thing that attendees saw after getting into the buses. Only a few people knew the speaker lineup, and speakers for the second and third sessions were distributed throughout the audience, so that attendees couldn't tell who else would be talking.

For those who are interested in seeing the talks before they're post-produced and polished, you can watch the recorded live stream feed here:

http://livestream.com/tedx/TEDxWellington2016 [livestream.com]

My talk starts at timecode 01:29:00 on the recorded video. I was talking about DNA sequencing on the Oxford Nanopore MinION:

https://twitter.com/tedxwellington/status/705901546152685568 [twitter.com]

A video of my presentation will be edited and uploaded to the TEDx YouTube [youtube.com] channel in a few weeks. Here's a brief point summary of my talk:

• DNA is everywhere.
• DNA sequencing is the process of converting the physical thing of DNA into a model (most commonly, a sequence of letters).
• Sequencing was used in remote areas of Africa for fast tracking of Ebola virus outbreaks
• Sequencing was also carried out on the slope of a volcano in the rainforests of Tanzania.
• These were only possible thanks to the MinION, a device that is so small that it can be taken almost anywhere.
• I started a sequencing run about 3 minutes before my presentation, and was able to show results (and carry out a basic BLAST [nih.gov] search) during the talk.
• DNA sequencing could be used in the future in doctor's clinics to get results before the doctor has finished their consultation.
• I had converted the squiggle data from the MinION into sound, and played a 17s-long sound clip of tomato DNA moving through a nanopore.
• DNA sequencing is more affordable than a plane ticket across the world, and soon will be more affordable than a plane ticket across the country
• People should trust in the disruptive potential of this technology, and get excited about the future applications. That will help me (and other researchers) to make it even better.

It was quite a big challenge filtering my knowledge of sequencing to a point where it could be understood by a few people in a general audience. I am greatly appreciative of all the other speakers for giving me wonderful feedback on the many things that went right over their head.

Original Submission