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UNC chemist advances "lab-on-a-chip"
technology with $3.8 million NIH grant

CHAPEL HILL - A chemist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will use a $3.8 million, four-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to advance his tiny "lab-on-a-chip" technology for cheaper, faster and more customized DNA sequencing.

The long-term goal is to reduce the cost of human genome sequencing from about $10 million to $1,000, and the time of sequencing to about 50 minutes. This would greatly expand sequencing's usefulness in medical research and health care, allowing health care professionals to tailor diagnosis, treatment and prevention to each person's unique genetic profile.

Dr. J. Michael Ramsey, the Minnie N. Goldby distinguished professor of chemistry in UNC's College of Arts and Sciences, was one of 11 scientists to recently receive awards totaling more than $13 million from the NIH's National Human Genome Research Institute. Ramsey's was the largest grant.

It currently costs about $10 million to sequence the amount of DNA found in the genomes of humans and other mammals, according to the NIH. The NIH's near-term goal is to lower the cost of sequencing a mammalian-sized genome to $100,000, allowing researchers to sequence the genomes of people participating in studies to identify genes that contribute to common, complex diseases.

Ramsey's "lab-on-a-chip" technology would decrease cost and time by employing "microfluidics" and "nanofluidics." These relatively new techniques involve working at a nanometer scale - one-billionth of a meter, much too small to be seen with a conventional lab microscope - that would enable lab tests to be performed in miniature on tiny silicon, glass or plastic chips.

"At this scale, it's possible to make a tiny hole, a pore less than two nanometers in diameter, which is the approximate diameter of a single strand of DNA when it is stretched into a straight line. This has opened up the possibility of new methods for sequencing the DNA strands," Ramsey said.

Ramsey is the 2007 recipient of the top award in chromatography from the American Chemical Society. He won a chemical instrumentation award from the society in 2003.

Ramsey was one of several Carolina faculty members to establish the Carolina Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence. In 1996, Ramsey's lab-on-a-chip technology won Discover magazine's Technology Award and an R&D magazine "100 Award," which were called "the Oscars of invention" by the Chicago Tribune.

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Note:
For more information about the NIH DNA sequencing technology grants, visit http://www.genome.gov/10000368.
For more on Ramsey's research, visit: http://research.unc.edu/endeavors/win2006/feature_01.php
Photo URL: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/faculty/ramsey_mike_photo%202001.jpg

NIH contact: Geoff Spencer, (301) 402-0911, spencerg@mail.nih.gov
College of Arts and Sciences contact: Kim Weaver Spurr, (919) 962-4093, spurrk@email.unc.edu
Dee Reid, (919) 843-6339, deereid@unc.edu
News Services contact: Clinton Colmenares, (919) 843-1991, clinton_colmenares@unc.edu