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Paul Lem builds the world’s smallest DNA analyzer, and looks forward to a time when it’s in every doctor’s office, and also in millions of homes.

It’s easy today to analyze blood glucose or take a pregnancy test at home, he says. Why not look at your genes as well — or the genes of a bug you picked up?

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Lem, a medical doctor with a background in infectious diseases, is the CEO of Spartan Bioscience Inc. of Ottawa.

The company’s new instrument is a cube only 10 centimetres wide. It has been awarded the 2016 Outstanding High Technology Company Recognition Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Ottawa “for developing the world’s smallest on-demand DNA-testing system, enabling unprecedented portability and convenience.”

Lem says it can take a sample — a swab from a sore throat, from a cut, from a sample of possibly tainted food — and analyze its genetics in half an hour.

The sample goes into a cartridge that is inserted into the cube. The rest all happens internally.