NuProbe Global, a global molecular diagnostics company based in Shanghai, China and Houston, TX, has signed an agreement with Oxford Nanopore Technologies, where Oxford Nanopore has licensed NuProbe's Blocker Displacement Amplification technology globally for undisclosed consideration.

The technology combination offers the potential to combine Oxford Nanopore sequencing, which offers real-time, rapid turnaround, scalable sequencing of any length DNA or RNA fragments, with the NuProbe technique to enable greater detection sensitivities and quantification of somatic mutations at less than 5% allele frequency.

This collaboration will support the expanding use of Oxford Nanopore sequencing in applications such as cancer, where targeted sequencing for the characterization of SNVs and SVs can be achieved alongside methylation analysis using small, accessible devices such as MinION and Flongle.

The companies plan to collaborate on the development of software tools to enable researchers to design bespoke and highly sensitive panels based on the technology. The goal is to enable users to analyze somatic mutations and gene fusions from tumor tissue and blood, and to be able to scale up these workflows for rapid and high throughput use in any environment.