A Stanford University professor claims
to have sequenced his entire genome using a team of two other people
for less than $50,000, which would be an impressive feat considering
just last year it took 250 people and $250,000.
"This is
the first demonstration that you don't need a genome center to
sequence a human genome," Stanford University Bioengineering
professor Stephen Quake, PhD, said in a statement. "It's
really democratizing
the fruits of the genome revolution and saying that anybody can
play in this game."
Dr. Quake's Heliscope Single Molecule
Sequencer is revolutionary since companies and genome sequencing
researchers often have large staffs, huge budgets, and hundreds of
machines at their disposal. The Heliscope Single Molecule
Sequencer has the functionality to sequence a person's human genome
in one month and relies on a three-person staff.
This can now
be done in one lab, with one machine, at a modest cost,” Quake also
said in an interview. “It’s going to unleash an enormous
amount of creativity and really broaden the field.”
To put
it into perspective of how difficult and expensive it is to sequence
DNA, only seven human genomes have been confirmed as fully
sequenced. Dr. Quake's genome is now available to researchers,
with other researchers at the Stanford School of Medicine now
analyzing the data and asking Quake questions.
Researchers are
looking ahead to the future, as Dr. Quake believes it should only be
two or three years until the $1,000 genome goal is possible. If
genome sequencing is $1,500 or less, it's possible it could become a
normal part of medical routine, used as a tool to help understand
diseases and genetic abnormalities.
It's believed better
understanding human DNA will offer an insight into the genetic roots
of cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes, or other major life threatening
issues facing humans. It could one day be possible to create
personalized medicine custom created for people using genome
sequencing, though researchers are unsure when this could be done.
