There and back again
We came back from Beijing yesterday evening — our luggage this afternoon — and I am still pretty tired after the trip. I had to leave the office early afternoon, when my brain just shut down. So don’t expect any quality posts from me for a day or two.
In the mean time, I’ll just refer you to this list of predictions for 2009.
Most I agree with, with the possible exception of this one:
We will not see a retail complete genome sequence offered for less than $1000. I’d be happy to be proven wrong here, mind you, but I just can’t see prices tumbling this far over the next twelve months – even with the huge competition and rapid technological advances in the DNA sequencing sector. Of course, it depends what you mean by “complete” – it will no doubt be possible to offer a fragmentary, low-coverage genome at this price by the end of the year, but such a product would be almost worse than no information at all. Alternatively, cut-price genome sequences may be offered by companies at a loss, to attract attention and create a more sustainable long-term market.
It sounds very reasonable, but I’ve been pretty pessimistic in my predictions about genotyping and sequencing technology in the past, so I will choose to be optimistic for 2009 and predict that we will see a $1000 genome.
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19-31=-12
January 19th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Give me $1000 *today* and I’ll give you a genome. Phage lambda okay? I keep the change. Note that the $1000 genome paragraph never says what the $1000 genome ought to be of…
January 19th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Hey, that’s cheating ;-)
Virus or bacterial genomes are way too easy. I’ll bet you a beer, however, that we’ll see a human genome for $1000 this year.
Not an expensive beer, mind you, I am not that confident about it :)
January 20th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
I am on for that bet!
January 20th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
You’re on! We’ll settle it on Dec 31st. Slots Pilsner okay? ;-)