12:58 <nmz787> azonenberg: have you heard of these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISFET

13:06 <Sync> nmz787: we are making them

13:06 <Sync> :)

13:08 <nmz787> Sync: are there commercial/available-from-boutique-companies ISFETs that can detect single molecule changes?

13:09 <Sync> no

13:09 <Sync> or rather not that I know of

13:09 <nmz787> so that must be why ion torrent seqeuncing still can't handle homopolymer stretches

13:09 <nmz787> I'm looking for some method of detecting single molecule changes to a growing strand of DNA

13:10 <Sync> ew

13:10 <Sync> :D

13:12 <nmz787> ahh. "The oblong design of the microchip contains millions of wells occupied by beads containing amplified copies of a single DNA strand. "..... from http://atp.ncifcrf.gov/genetics-and-genomics/laboratory-of-molecular-technology/lmt-technology-development/ion-torrent/

13:12 <Sync> pretty happy that I repaired the VG mbe again

13:12 <nmz787> I may have to seriously consider surface enhanced raman spectroscopy

13:13 <Sync> raman is nice

13:14 <Sync> but it is pretty amazing what shitty build quality you get when you buy vacuum equipment

13:14 <Sync> the vacuum side is usually very nice but the electronics on our evap are just .... sad

13:17 <nmz787> what's VG mde?

13:17 <nmz787> s/mde/mbe/

13:17 <Sync> http://www.oxfordplasma.de/systems/v100_mbe.htm

13:23 <nmz787> are you a microE by day?

13:24 <Sync> no, not really

13:31 <nmz787> so you've got that MBE in your own lab?

13:31 <Sync> haha I wish, I work at the university as a side job

13:46 <Sync> wee my small oven works :)

13:54 <nmz787> sounds like a nice side job!

13:55 <Sync> yeah it is pretty cool

14:48 <nmz787> so Helicos is about 1 DNA molecule per sq micron on the hybridization surface

14:50 <nmz787> http://www.helicosbio.com/Portals/0/Videos/tSMS-How_It_Works.flv