Electron Optica was awarded an NHGRI grant in 2011 to develop a novel electron microscope for sequencing DNA. Their technology, called ‘monochromatic aberration-corrected dual-beam low energy electron microscopy’, is different from other EM-based sequencers in that it should be able to directly read sequence without requiring labeled or modified nucleotides. This should eliminate the need for upfront sample prep. Also, as the instrument will use lower energies for imaging, it won’t cause radiation damage like some of the other EM-based sequencers might, yielding lower error rates.

Status: unknown

Projected commercial availability: unknown