Small wonder: big DNA advances loom at university startup Oxford Nanopore

Company spun out of Oxford University makes DNA and RNA sequencing devices to identify viruses and variants

Not far from Didcot, once a halfway stop between London and Bristol on the Great Western Railway celebrated for Isambard Kingdom Brunel's engineering, innovation has returned with a hi-tech factory manufacturing DNA and RNA sequencing machines.

Oxford Nanopore, a spinout from Oxford University, produces devices used to identify viruses and spot variants in the genetic makeup of humans, animals and plants. Its sequencers have been used to track Covid-19 variants globally and are now being trialled on intensive care patients with respiratory infections at Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals in London, and in the fight against the 200 drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis, the second-biggest killer worldwide after Covid in 2020.