In the first demonstration of its kind, researchers at the Whitehead Institute (Cambridge, MA) have shown that a microdevice etched onto a silica wafer can be used to sequence "real world" DNA samples prepared for the Human Genome Project. The device, consisting of a 12.5 cm channel and a loading mechanism etched into a silica wafer, achieved 99% accuracy with samples taken from the production line of the Institute's Center for Genome Research. "We obtain 550 base reads in less than 20 minutes. This performance is quite similar in read length to a Perkin Elmer 3700 [sequencing machine], which requires electrophoresis times. . .exceeding an hour," explains Daniel Ehrlich, senior author on the study (Genome Res. 9, 853–858, 1999). Ehrlich adds that the ability to rapidly sequence comparatively crude samples should prove useful in high-speed forensic analysis: "For DNA forensics, we achieve simple tandem repeat assays in less than 2 minutes [that] are comparable in quality to a 40 minute run on a capillary machine."