Although Moore’s Law mainly applies to computing hardware, predicting a doubling of computing power every two years, DNA sequencing cost has followed a similar pattern for many years, approximately halving each two years. However since January 2008 there has been a break in that trend, with sequencing costs rapidly declining after that date. This applies to both the cost per megabase of DNA sequence and the total cost per genome. Data from the National Human Genome Research Institute, including the graph shown above, show that sequencing a whole genome costs little more than 10,000 dollars where it cost about 100,000,000 at the start of the millennium. At this rate it will not be long before a whole genome will go for less than 1,000 dollars. Yet despite these amazing advancements, adoption of genetic technologies in clinical practice still has not really caught on, but we are eagerly awaiting the day were we can run a whole genome sequence for each patient on our own in-office desktop sequencer.
(hat tip: Forbes)
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