What Could You Do With Cheap Genome Sequencing Now?

Genome sequencing does definitely not equal fortune telling: it cannot predict how long you will live or what your body mass index will look like. However, it can tell you a lot about your sensitivity to drugs, your family history or whether you are a carrier of monogenic conditions. After the Human Genome Project was completed 20 years ago (for a whopping $2.7 billion), the dream was to be able to sequence a person’s genome for 1000 USD. After this became feasible, the next dream was to make it even cheaper: now it costs around 200 USD after Illumina’s innovation came to life. What is the next dream? To be able to analyse the data and draw clinical conclusions from that. Wait, I can already have my genome sequenced for $100, can’t I? Although it is often not trivial from the names of various service offerings, there is a difference between full genome sequencing and the sub-$100 offers that are based on “Genome-wide association studies” or GWAS in short. You can imagine the difference like this: your DNA is a thick book. Full genome sequencing is reading the book from cover to cover. Still, we are not necessarily understanding all of the content, but we are able to read all the letters and sentences. Meanwhile, GWAS services – like 23andMe, Ancestry and the like – look into the book here and there, reading some sentences at one point, looking for a letter at another point and then using studies to find stati...
Source: The Medical Futurist - Category: Information Technology Authors: Tags: Genomics Personalized Medicine DNA dna testing Genetic testing genetics Genome Healthcare Innovation gc3 genome sequencing Source Type: blogs