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Gene Sequencing Datapoint Of The Day

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by Felix Salmon
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Feb 13 2008 12:00am EDT

Gene Sequencing Datapoint of the Day

Cost of sequencing Craig Venter's an anonymous genome at the human genome project: $3 billion, over 10 years
Cost of sequencing James Watson's genome: $1 million, over 2 months
Cost of sequencing an anonymous African's genome: $100,000, over 1 month

David Ewing Duncan calls this "a sort of mega-Moore's Law", you can see why.

Update: Duncan clarifies:

It did not cost $3 billion to sequence Venter's genome, as the datapoint says, something got mixed up there. It cost $3 billion to complete the first human genome by the global consortium led by the NIH, and completed in 2003; this consortium was in competition with Venter's company, Celera, which spent about $500m for its genome. The consortium's genome was an anonymous compilation of several people. Even Celera's genome was not entirely Venter's genome, but a blend of many people and Venter -- he later completed his entire genome at his institute, spending about $70 million.

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