Sequence Your Genome “Cheaply”

Researchers George Church and colleagues at Harvard Medical School said they had found a faster and cheaper way to sequence your genome (the entire DNA code of a person, plant or other organism) for only about $2.2 million.

They hope to reduce the cost to $1,000 per genome.

Their new method, described in a report in the journal Science, bypasses the traditional gel-based technology for analyzing DNA and instead uses color-coded beads, a microscope and a camera. It is considerably cheaper than the current methods, which cost an estimated $20 million for a human genome.

“We are finding needles in a haystack very accurately,” Church said in a telephone interview.

It involves using E.coli bacteria as an incubator to generate the genetic material, separating it out, breaking it apart and laying it onto a gel.

Right now the system must use an existing genome map as a reference — it cannot sequence a new genome from scratch. But it worked to show the genetic differences between a new kind of E. coli bacterium and the existing E. coli genome map that has been published, Church said.

The idea is to produce a technology that could be used to compare one person’s genome, for example, to the existing human genome map and find an individual’s differences.

“There are needs for personal genomic data already,” Church said.
“If you are a cancer patient there are quite a number of therapies which can only be used if you have a specific genetic component.”

Harvard has licensed the technology to Agencourt Bioscience Corporation.

“Our integrated liquid-handling and microscopy setup can be replicated with off-the-shelf components at a cost of approximately $140,000,” they wrote.

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With significant reduction in cost, as can be expected with volume usage, this technology can lead to the reality of fully inidividualized medicines. No more onesize-fits-all drugs.