We’re ALMOST to the point where we do full-genome sequencing on a tumor biopsy to adjust a patient’s chemo drugs. The results unfortunately haven’t been reproducible yet, so it’s not quite ready for clinical practice, but by golly we’re close. It currently costs about $4,000 per genome, and we’re less than 10 years after the Human Genome Project which was 13 years and 3 billion dollars for a single genome. One company claims its soon-to-be-released machine will do it in 4-5 days for $900.
Fair point, though the line’s pretty blurry in “biotechnology”. (Typo: I meant “biotechnolgy” instead of “biochemistry”). What I mean is that people are complaining that the field is doing a lot of “quick-fix” solutions to problems, and I’m saying—“hey, some of those ‘quick-fixes’ look pretty promising.”
Re: talking about problems in the biochemistry field in general:
I’m sure that there are lots of problems, and I don’t mean to invalidate anyone’s points, but on the bright side, genetic sequencing has been getting faster and cheaper FASTER than moore’s law predicts. http://www.forbes.com/sites/techonomy/2012/01/12/dna-sequencing-is-now-improving-faster-than-moores-law/
We’re ALMOST to the point where we do full-genome sequencing on a tumor biopsy to adjust a patient’s chemo drugs. The results unfortunately haven’t been reproducible yet, so it’s not quite ready for clinical practice, but by golly we’re close. It currently costs about $4,000 per genome, and we’re less than 10 years after the Human Genome Project which was 13 years and 3 billion dollars for a single genome. One company claims its soon-to-be-released machine will do it in 4-5 days for $900.
Thats mostly engineering, not science.
Fair point, though the line’s pretty blurry in “biotechnology”. (Typo: I meant “biotechnolgy” instead of “biochemistry”). What I mean is that people are complaining that the field is doing a lot of “quick-fix” solutions to problems, and I’m saying—“hey, some of those ‘quick-fixes’ look pretty promising.”