Entire DNA sequence now available for less than £700
An American company is offering clients the chance to have their entire genetic sequence of DNA read for $1,000 (£646).
The “thousand-dollar genome” – an individual’s complete genetic information – is being offered by Ion Torrent, a division of Life Technologies Corp, which is based in Connecticut.
The device takes up about as much space as an office printer and can sequence an entire genome in a single day rather than six to eight weeks required only a few years ago, its makers claim.
Doctors said the move could revolutionise medicine.
[Related: The key to living to 100 is in your genes]
Currently it costs three times that amount just to test for mutations in the genes that raise the risk of breast and ovarian cancer.
Research labs are expected to be the firm’s main customers in the near future, using Proton to obtain the complete genome sequence of people with cancer or autism, for instance, and move close to finding a condition’s underlying genetic causes as well as possible ways to treat it.
Babies might be first in line for whole-genome sequencing. Every US state currently requires newborns to be screened for at least 29 genetic diseases.
Richard Lifton, chairman of the genetics department at Yale University, said: “If the cost of whole-genome sequencing gets sufficiently low, you could sequence all the genes in a newborn.
“I'm increasingly confident that's going to happen. But we need to be careful how we utilise this information.”
He added that parents might not want to know if their child had the form of a gene that raised the risk of Alzheimer's.
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