{"id":35559,"date":"2017-03-24T20:02:55","date_gmt":"2017-03-25T03:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/scientists-just-changed-the-way-we-build-genomes-to-make-them-270000-times-cheaper"},"modified":"2017-06-04T07:07:51","modified_gmt":"2017-06-04T14:07:51","slug":"scientists-just-changed-the-way-we-build-genomes-to-make-them-270000-times-cheaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/scientists-just-changed-the-way-we-build-genomes-to-make-them-270000-times-cheaper","title":{"rendered":"Scientists just changed the way we build genomes to make them 270,000 times cheaper"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/scientists-just-changed-the-way-we-build-genomes-to-make-them-270000-times-cheaper.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In 2003, the US Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health <a href=\"https:\/\/www.genome.gov\/11006943\/human-genome-project-completion-frequently-asked-questions\/\">announced<\/a> that\u201413 years and $2.7 billion later\u2014they had finally finished mapping the human genome.<\/p>\n<p>But the quest to understand human genetics was far from over: Genomes, which are the entire layout of our 3 billion base pairs of DNA, vary dramatically from person to person. So mapping the first human genome was really just mapping <em>a <\/em>human genome (the patient\u2019s identity was kept secret for privacy.) And even though shorter genetic sequencing is available, doctors studying rare genetic diseases need the full scope of a patient\u2019s genetic material to find the problematic mutation. Finding these faulty sections of genes is like a microscopic version of<em> Where\u2019s Waldo <\/em>among 3 billion people wearing stripes, a game that has cost $3 billion to play.<\/p>\n<p>In a paper <a href=\"http:\/\/science.sciencemag.org\/content\/early\/2017\/03\/22\/science.aal3327\">published<\/a> (paywall) in Science on March 23, researchers from the Baylor College of Medicine, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard University said they have figured a way to sequence the entirety of any genome for just $10,000, in a couple of weeks. Their test project? Re-sequencing the DNA of the mosquito species that spreads the Zika virus.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/qz.com\/941325\/faster-cheaper-genome-sequencing-gives-scientists-new-ways-of-stopping-zikas-spread\/\">https:\/\/qz.com\/941325\/faster-cheaper-genome-sequencing-gives...as-spread\/<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2003, the US Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health announced that\u201413 years and $2.7 billion later\u2014they had finally finished mapping the human genome. But the quest to understand human genetics was far from over: Genomes, which are the entire layout of our 3 billion base pairs of DNA, vary dramatically from [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":413,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,412,1495],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/413"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35559"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58321,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35559\/revisions\/58321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}