The Human Genome Is So 2003

29 Apr 2009

The X-Prize foundation is auctioning the chance to have your entire genome sequenced.

Bidding started Friday on eBay at $68,000, quite a bit more than the several hundred dollars charged by commercial genomics companies. But rather than a readout of several hundred genomic hotspots, you’ll get a full analysis of your every last gene, interpreted by some of the world’s finest geneticists.

It’s quite a service. It’s also mind-blowing to think that sequencing the first human genome cost roughly $3 billion. But even at reduced contemporary rates, is it really worth the money, even as a status symbol or for the gratification of being an “early adopter,” in the words of Harvard geneticist George Church?

In a series of articles recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine, geneticists acknowledge something that’s largely escaped public attention: the sequenced genome just hasn’t been as useful as predicted. Expected to illuminate the origins of complex disease and kick-start an era of personalized medicine, it’s helped researchers looking for clues to disease pathways, but done very little for consumers.

In some ways, people expected too much, too soon. But in other ways, expectations for the genome were unrealistic. The genome is only one part of life’s blueprint. The epigenome — a chemical layer of information that determines when genes are turned on and off — is another one, and perhaps just as important. Scientists are still mapping it. Another important part of the blueprint may be chromosome topography. It seems that how genes are physically arranged in the cell nucleus affects how they work.

So if you really want to be an early adopter, then stick with commercial genomic services, and save the big money until epigenome maps and chromosome topographs are on the market.

See Also:

Image: Temporal variation in gene activation in a mouse/PLoS Genetics

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