DNA Sequencing Complete in Record Time!

Darkfrog submitted, created time 8 months 3 weeks (www.nature.com)

Dr. Watson, I presume? Although criticisms remain -- largely that the small fragments into which the man's genome was snipped might not have been reassembled properly -- a full genome in only four months is plenty to crow about.

Watson's genome is not the first to be sequenced. We may recall that J. Craig Venter's was as well, but Venter's project cost US$100 million and Watson's only $1.5 million.

What strikes me about this article is that it's the first time I've seen any reference to an X-Prize for sequencing. In 2004, a team won the Ansari X-Prize by sending up a spacecraft twice in two weeks. The X-Prize for DNA seqencing will be awarded to whoever can squeeze the cost down to $1000 per genome.

Keywords: James Watson watson Human Genome Project genome sequencing X-Prize DNA sequencing methodology whole-genome sequencing genome project