Good parts of Genomics

Well, despite what I said recently about hating genomics, the last week or two have actually been pretty cool, ever since we gave up on becoming programmers (which is kind of sad, because I think it would be useful to know a bit of programming).

Anyway, we have been talking about Next Generation sequencing, which is the technology that is in use right now to sequence genomes. It is light years ahead of what was in use just a decade ago in the Human Genome Project in terms of time required, quality of data, etc. As we have been talking about this, Dr. Udall keeps correcting himself and reminding us that the correct term is Second Generation, not Next Generation, because there is already a Next Next Generation (Third) on the horizon, and they don't want to confuse people.

Of course, with the constant reminders that Third Generation was coming, one day we asked what it was. It blew my mind. Now, I recognize that most people who read this blog are not Sam (in fact, I'm pretty sure only one of you is Sam), so I don't think everybody will be as interested in this as we nerds are. That said, it is pretty awesome.

Pacific Biosciences has technology in development that they claim will be able to sequence a human genome in "minutes" for under $100. (click the link and go to "demo" at the bottom for a cool video). This will be available in 2010. So, the original human genome took about 10 years to complete, and now 10 more years later we think we will have it in under an hour. Science is just incredible.