A step toward the $1,000 personal genome using readily available lab equipment

August 5, 2005 | Source: KurzweilAI

The theoretical price of having one’s personal genome sequenced just fell from the prohibitive $20 million dollars to about $2.2 million, and the goal is to reduce the amount further–to about $1,000–to make individualized prevention and treatment realistic.

The sharp drop is due to a new DNA sequencing technology developed by Harvard Medical School researchers.

The new technique calls for replicating thousands of DNA fragments attached to one-micron beads, allowing for high signal density in a small area that is still large enough to be resolved through inexpensive optics. One of four fluorescent dyes corresponding to the four DNA bases binds at a specific location on the genetic sequence, depending on which DNA base is present. The fragment then shines with one of the four colors, revealing the identity of the base. Recording the color data from multiple passes over the same sequences, a camera documents the results and routes them to computers that reinterpret the data as a linear sequence of base pairs.

Harvard Medical School news release