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PETBioNewsNewsYour genome for £400,000?

BioNews

Your genome for £400,000?

Published 9 June 2009 posted in News and appears in BioNews 177

Author

BioNews

Image by Peter Artymiuk via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts the shadow of a DNA double helix, on a background that shows the fluorescent banding of the output from a DNA sequencing machine.
CC BY 4.0
Image by Peter Artymiuk via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts the shadow of a DNA double helix, on a background that shows the fluorescent banding of the sequencing output from an automated DNA sequencing machine.

Several millionaires are said to be queuing up for a new service that will provide details of a person's entire genetic code within a week - for a mere £400,000. Craig Venter, former head of Celera, the US company that produced a draft version of the human genome in February 2001...

Several millionaires are said to be queuing up for a new service that will provide details of a person's entire genetic code within a week - for a mere £400,000.


Craig Venter, former head of Celera, the US Company that produced a draft version of the human genome in February 2001, said that he will soon be able to provide an individual with their entire genome on a CD. But the new service, which should be available later this year, has been met with scepticism by other scientists. Dr Tim Hubbard, head of human genome research at the Sanger Institute in Cambridge, likened the new venture to the Russians sending tourists into space - 'fun for those who can afford it, but it is just a good gimmick.'


UK biotech firm Solexa also plans to offer new services providing personal genetic information. Using a quicker and cheaper technique, Solexa's eventual aim is to decode a person's entire genome in 24 hours, for just £562. But initially, the company plans to examine genetic differences associated with diseases such as cancer and diabetes. Chief executive officer, Nick McCooke, says such information could potentially improve human health, but must be interpreted properly by a health professional.


The pressure group Genewatch UK says there is an urgent need for better monitoring of such genetic testing. Deputy director Dr Helen Wallace called for regulation to check whether tests were valid or useful before they were marketed.

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9 June 2009 • 2 minutes read

$10m dollar race to sequence 100 genomes in 10 days

by Dr Antony Starza-Allen

The X Prize Foundation is offering $10m to the first private team that is able to sequence 100 human genomes in just ten days. It would currently take months, at the cost of millions of dollars, to sequence an individual human genome. Francis Collins, director of the...

Image by Peter Artymiuk via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts the shadow of a DNA double helix, on a background that shows the fluorescent banding of the output from a DNA sequencing machine.
CC BY 4.0
Image by Peter Artymiuk via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts the shadow of a DNA double helix, on a background that shows the fluorescent banding of the sequencing output from an automated DNA sequencing machine.
News
9 June 2009 • 2 minutes read

Cut-price genomes draw closer

by BioNews

Advances in genome sequencing technologies are bringing scientists one step closer to a time when it would cost as little as $1000 to read the entire genetic code of a person, two US teams say. A group based at Harvard Medical School has developed a method using beads and fluorescent...

Image by Peter Artymiuk via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts the shadow of a DNA double helix, on a background that shows the fluorescent banding of the output from a DNA sequencing machine.
CC BY 4.0
Image by Peter Artymiuk via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts the shadow of a DNA double helix, on a background that shows the fluorescent banding of the sequencing output from an automated DNA sequencing machine.
News
9 June 2009 • 2 minutes read

Low-cost genomes for all?

by BioNews

The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) is inviting proposals to develop new, cheap genome sequencing technologies, aimed at developing a '$1000 genome' by 2014. The entire human genome sequence, the first draft of which was published three years ago, cost an estimated $3 billion, with mammalian genome projects today...

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