Would you like your genome sequenced in a matter of hours for under $100?
An article from GenomeWeb last week, â€œComplete Genomics, BioNanomatrix to Use $8.8M NIST Grant to Develop ‘$100 Genome’ Platform,â€ reveals that BioNanomatrix and Complete Genomics have partnered together to share an $8.8 million grant from the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology to â€œdevelop technology that will be able to sequence a human genome in eight hours for less than $100.â€
From the article (donâ€™t worry, I have no idea how these technologies really work either):
â€œThe proposed sequencing platform will use Complete Genomicsâ€™ sequencing chemistry and BioNanomatrixâ€™ nanofluidic technology. The companies said they plan to adapt DNA sequencing chemistry with â€œlinearized nanoscale DNA imagingâ€to create a system that can read DNA sequences longer than 100,000 bases quickly and with accuracy â€œexceeding the current industry standard.â€â€
So what does this mean for genetic genealogists? Well, considering many genetic genealogy tests cost substantially more than $100 and return a much smaller amount of sequencing, whole genome sequencing for $100 would have a pretty strong impact. Although this technology requires a considerable amount of development, there has been a lot of recent investment and remarkable progress in this area.