As Sequencing Continues to Scale, Volta Labs Improves Sample Prep: Udayan Umapathi, CEO

Chapters:

0:00 With the incredible recent scaling in sequencing, what’s important for researchers and clinicians in sample prep?

4:20 Manipulating samples with electric,  magnetic, and acoustic fields

9:52 A vast set of apps

14:20 Top customers

17:48 Goals for the next couple of years

23:35 The ultimate in sample prep

Depending on your age, DNA sequencing is experiencing a second or third renaissance. New sequencing tools continue to make genomics one of the fastest-growing industries of all time. 

All this scaling can create a bottleneck in sample prep. Volta Labs, a company founded out of the MIT Media Lab by Udayan Umapathi, has just commercialized a new instrument for sample prep called Callisto. The instrument manipulates samples with electric, magnetic, and acoustic fields.   

Udayan joins us today to describe the new instrument and comment on how sample prep is evolving today. Most importantly, the company wants to develop new apps with customized settings based on the customer's particular application, such as isolating really long, high-molecular-weight DNA for long-read sequencing. 

“The vision is to have a vast set of apps, similar to an iPhone.  We will continue to provide more and more apps that cater to various customers,” says Udayan in today’s show.

What are the apps Udayan sees in the next few years?  And what is the ultimate sample prep in today’s world of sequencing?