How much would you pay to see your future?
My dad used to say technology is advancing so quickly that, by the time a product reaches market, it is already obsolete. Moreover, if you wait just a little longer, you can pay a lot less. The sequencing of the human genome takes the advancement of technology, and its fast reduction in cost, to an entirely new level.
Whole-genome sequencing could be affordable and accurate enough to perform on every newborn with a simple heel-prick blood test in a matter of years.
(Credit: Elizabeth Armstrong Moore/CNET)The Human Genome Project, which officially completed the mind-boggling achievement of sequencing Jim Watson's genome in 2006, carried the equally mind-boggling price tag of $3 billion. If I may be so bold as to use that word thrice in one paragraph, even more mind-boggling is that a company called Complete Genomics has just sequenced three human genomes for $4,400 in materials, with an error rate of less than one base in 100,000.
DNA sequencing technology, which could help us detect genetic predispositions to illnesses, customize treatments accordingly, lead to the development of new energy sources, etc., is currently being used to either do long reads of hundreds of bases on genomes that have yet to be sequenced (see the news this week on the full sequencing of the domestic horse genome), or shorter reads that only align with a genome we have already sequenced (ours, for example).
In a paper published in the journal Science on Thursday, Complete Genomics shares the methods it used, which John Timmer at Ars Technica describes as "clever variants of well known molecular biology techniques to read massive amounts of DNA fragments that are, in total, about 65 bases long."
Moreover, Complete Genomics used more common--read more affordable--materials. For a detailed explanation of how this was done, check out the paper in Science, or Timmer's illustrated translation for Ars Technica.
Complete Genomics is not the lone warrior in this field. As CNET's Stephen Shankland reported in October, IBM Research has jumped into the game, and hopes to reduce the cost of genetic testing to as little as $100 per person. And then there's genomic technology manufacturer Illumina, and 454 Life Sciences. The list grows.
At this rate of advancement, it has been widely reported that the technology for whole-genome sequencing could be affordable and accurate enough to perform on every newborn with a simple heel-prick blood test in a matter of years. This makes a lot of people uneasy for several reasons, not the least of which is privacy.
"Bad things can be done with the genome," Dr. Jay Flatley of Illumina tells Times Online. "It could predict something about someone--and you could potentially hand information to their employer or their insurance company. People have to recognize that this horse is out of the barn, and that your genome probably can't be protected, because everywhere you go you leave your genome behind."
I have to wonder which is more unnerving to most people--that others will be able to access our genomic fingerprints, or that our bodies are able to be so accurately read at all. The secrets currently locked within us carry a certain mystique, and once unlocked could be put to uses that are possibly beyond our control. Whether this makes the human body more or less magical is debatable, but this much is not: The horse is out of the barn.
Elizabeth Armstrong Moore is a freelance journalist based in Portland, Ore. She has contributed to Wired magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, and public radio. Her semi-obscure hobbies include unicycling, slacklining, hula-hooping, scuba diving, billiards, Sudoku, Magic the Gathering, and classical piano. She is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
But Vista... that certainly did happen... oh god the pain. At least Win7 / Vista SP3 is out.
Even though it is illegal in this future world, everyone effectively discriminates against people based on their DNA---the best job opportunities go to whoever has the best DNA.
The next logical step from there would be for people to "enhance" their babies' genetically and/or choose which fertilized egg of many to implant based on its DNA.
Something to think about.
DNA enhanced humans as well as cyborgs are awesome. I would love to have a chip in my brain so I could cheat in exams.
Say genome sequencing came to be as cheap as 100 per person. Privacy issues aside, wouldn't you want to know ahead of time if say you found out you carried an allele that puts you at a higher risk for heart diseast? You could take preventative measure to make sure you're in good cardiovascular health. Thus, helping to counteract any ill events in the future
This isn't about seeing your own future, it's about being proactive about your health.
I know someone who has severe cholesterol problems and its something that runs in there family... they eat as healthy as you can to lower it, they take the pills as well and nothing drops it to a safe level... when you can cure that tell me.
I am all for understanding DNA, but if one doesn't want to pay $100 to find out what is going to be wrong with them, don't knock them down. Just because you know what is you have doesn't mean it can be fixed... at least not yet, when that time comes then I will say yes.
When Jim Watson's genome was sequenced 3 years ago (from the ArsTechnica article you refer to):
"For comparison, the completion of Jim Watson's genome, done just a few years ago, is estimated to have cost $20 million."
Read the articles you write about, please.
If i could save the world would you listen?
if i knew you died tommarow could i save you today?
if time in the future was gone when you looked would you cry?
if you knew what to do now and no one listened would you still try?
if you had to do something you thought you could'nt would you do it even if it might not change much at all?
or is it time is only fracions which we see as increments and algebra or calculus would be needed.
sekhar,
networksniff[dot]com
Complete Genomic didn't mention how long it takes to map a complete human genome. If it's within the timeframe of how cell division does it, it shouldn't take more than 1 day.
I'm aware the technology is still in its infancy. I have high hope the price will dramatically go down ($200) and the time to map a human genome would take no more than 6 hours.
- by dgmacarthur November 12, 2009 9:32 AM PST
- Oh God - I'm sorry, Elizabeth, but the first paragraph of your article is simply awful.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(29 Comments)The Human Genome Project did NOT sequence Jim Watson's genome, but rather a mixture of DNA from several anonymous individuals. Watson's genome (which was an entirely separate project) was sequenced in 2008, not 2006, and at an approximate cost of around $1 million, not $3 billion. Finally, the price of the genomes sequenced by Complete Genomics was $4,400 ON AVERAGE, not in total.
Maybe you could trying running your pieces by someone who actually knows something - anything! - about the topic before posting them?