Photo: Supplied
Dr Miles Benton had the idea for portable, bedside sequencing in hospitals when his son was born eight weeks premature. He knew there was technological capability to have a diagnosis within the hour for the meningitis doctors suspected his son had — rather than the 48 hours it took to get a lumbar puncture.
Benton is a senior bioinformatician at the New Zealand’s Institute of Environmental Research (ESR), leading research into innovating technologies to remotely sequence genomes far from the lab. There's been much talk about genome sequencing for Covid-19, but Benton’s work is concerned with significantly improving treatment times for many serious illnesses.
Dr Miles Benton's portable, bedside sequencing machine Photo: Supplied
