by AlexWitherspoon
The $4400 Genome:
[Via ScienceNOW]
The cost of sequencing an entire human genome continues to plummet. Complete Genomics, a Mountain View, California-based biotechnology company last year claimed it would soon be able to sell full human genome sequences for as little as $5000 apiece. That now appears within reach. In tomorrow’s Science, the company will report that it sequenced three human genomes for about $4400 each, at least in the cost of reagents. Such cheap sequencing could vastly accelerate studies designed to pinpoint genes underlying complex diseases.
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And they claim to be able to do it in a day! I’d like to see how accurate the data is but it does represent a huge decrease in time and money:
The rapid fall in sequencing prices may give genomics an equivalent of Moore’s Law, which describes how the number of transistors on computer chips doubles every 18 months, steadily driving down the cost of computing power. In 2003, the cost of sequencing a human genome was an estimated $300 million. That was down to $1 million in 2007 and $60,000 last year.
It is now dropping about an order of magnitude every 18 months or so. So by the end of next year, we could be looking at $500 genomes. As i said below, buy stock in hard drive makers.
Technorati Tags: Bioinformatics
