Cao, M.D. et al. Nat. Commun. 8, 14515 (2017).

As nanopore-based sequencing technology develops and matures, researchers are looking for creative ways to take advantage of its features, which include very long sequence reads and base-calling in near-real time. Cao et al. have designed the npScarf software, which uses long reads as a scaffold for fragmented genome assemblies generated from short reads. It uses the real-time base-calling feature in combination with rapid computation to determine when a sufficient level of scaffolding has been achieved, so that the sequencing run can be stopped to save further sequencing and computational resources. The approach performs well against other 'hybrid' long-read scaffolders that are used to improve the quality of short-read assemblies but lack real-time capabilities.