The 10x change of the week: human genome.

Another exponential step in our ability to acquire new biological data. The next steps will be to interpret and use as information, e.g. for treating diseases or developing new and better us.

The Human Genome Project, which officially completed the mind-boggling achievement of sequencing Jim Watson's genome in 2006, carried the equally mind-boggling price tag of $3 billion. If I may be so bold as to use that word thrice in one paragraph, even more mind-boggling is that a company called Complete Genomics has just sequenced three human genomes for $4,400 in materials, with an error rate of less than one base in 100,000.

Referene: Human Genome Sequencing Using Unchained Base Reads on Self-Assembling DNA Nanoarrays. Published Online November 5, 2009. Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1181498

tags: 10x, information, tool, health, cloud, computers