posted on October 1, 2002 10:12:21 PM new For Half a Million Dollars, Your Genome on a CD
By Paul Elias The Associated Press
Mapping and reading J. Craig Venter's genome took 15 years, $5 billion and some of the world's most sophisticated computers.
Wouldn't you, too, like your genome decoded?
Venter says he plans to offer the service, with the goal of burning individual human's entire DNA sequences onto shiny compact discs.
It will cost about $500,000 per person, says the entrepreneurial scientist who helped decode the human genome.
Venter hopes ultimately to mass-produce gene CDs like so many Bruce Springsteen CDs that will stock the shelves of every general practitioner's office and be covered by insurance.
"We are trying to push genomics to the $1,000 genome," Venter said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
He said he has lined up several wealthy individuals, whom he declined to identify, who will pay to have their genomes mapped and thus kick off what he said would be a nonprofit project.
With individuals' genomes available to them, doctors are expected to be able to prevent and treat many diseases better. Already, genetic tests can determine if some women are more prone to breast cancer than others.
Venter led the for-profit team in the race against government scientists to decipher the human genome. Both teams simultaneously announced the successful sequencing of five human genomes, including Venter's, in competing scientific papers last year.
Venter, former chief of genomics pioneer Celera, now runs three nonprofit ventures he founded.
Those three ventures are spending $30 million to build a new gene-sequencing center in Rockville, Md., which Venter expects to open by year's end. It is there that Venter and other scientists will work on putting individual genomes on optical storage media by next year.
Venter said the only way to mass produce gene maps cheaply is to simply get on with the work. He claims his intention is not to get rich but to streamline the process to the point where insurance companies will pay for the CDs.
Even if insurers decided to cover individual genomes, many fear the industry would use the technology to deny coverage to people prone to disease.
Venter is not the only scientists pushing the $1,000 genome. At least three companies, including Great Britain's Solexa, are pursuing similar goals.
Most concede that the $1,000 genome is years away.
And scientists today can identify only a handful of links between genes and disease. There's a large chasm between mapping a genome and understanding it.
Dr. Robert Waterston, who helped the government's genome sequencing effort, said mapping individual genomes today will benefit scientists more than the individual.
"I'm sympathetic to the direction Craig's going and once we get the science down, it will be very valuable to treating diseases," said Waterston, head of Washington University's genetics department. "But the number of genes we can identify for the predilection of disease is really limited."
"... many fear the industry would usethe technology to deny coverage topeople prone to disease."
