Two groups united in first sequencing a human genome -- the Human Genome Project, funded by the US Department of Energy, and Celera Genomics, a private company. The Human Genome Project 10 years and cost $3 billion USD (US Dollars), while the Celera genome sequencing project took two years and price just $300 million USD. Equally projects completed in 2000 or 2001, depending on what is considered"complete" human genome sequencing.
The highlight of sequencing the human genome was enormously significant because it gave us a straight description of the code causal the formation of a human being, still if we only appreciate small parts of it. The number of genes in the human genome was found to be 20,000-25,000, lesser than predicted. As more genomes continue to be sequenced, our knowledge of their contents increases, as does our ability to apply these findings usefully to personalized medicine.
Gene sequencing costs have been dropped exponentially since the sequencing of the human genome in 2000. In 2001, the genome sequencing of James Watson, a co-discoverer of the arrangement of DNA, was finished at a cost of $2 million USD. In 2008, the first full genome sequencing services were sold commercially to customers for a cost of $100,000 USD. By March 2008, one company, Applied Biosystems, finished human genome sequencing in two weeks for $60,000 USD, the best cost yet. Another company, clever Bio-systems, has urbanized a system that can sequence a full human genome in 24 hours for $5,000 USD.
A cost has been obtainable for the first to series 100 human genomes for $10,000 USD each in ten days or less. The $10 million USD prize, donated by diamond prospector Steward Blusson, will carry on to be obtainable until the deadline of 4 October 2013. Many scientists around the world think it is highly likely that the prize will be claimed before the deadline, almost certainly considerably before.
If the cost of genome sequencing falls below $1,000 USD, or better yet, $500 USD, many futurists have predict qualitative change in the way we do medicine. If millions of genomes are sequenced and made publicly available, the potential information to be gained for the science of genetics would be massive.
