A new technology, which uses semiconductor, successfully arranged the genome of Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel.
The inventor Jonathan Rothberg is among the group of people who want to achieve a $1,000 human genome. Rothberg believes that the machine would be ready for release for the year 2013.
Moore is the co-founder of Intel, the company responsible for making the dream of Rothberg become true, so it is only right that he should be the first man to have his genome sequence.
At the price of $49,000, the rate is a steal since other machines with the same function commands a much higher price.
The manufacturers want to reduce the price to $1,000 genomes so that it could be available for the masses. Manufacturers Hopes to include the new technology as part of a medical practice. However, the sequencing technology may be running ahead of the ability to interpret what it means.
From Dr. Moore’s genome sequence, information about the likelihood of several characteristics considered. However, the current understandings of genes and their function makes DNA interpretation harder.
Intel hopes the by the next 10 to 15 years, understanding about the genome sequencing already progresses.
DNA sequencing on the early days used four different radioactivity markers or fluorescent chemicals. The device is the latest commercial that uses semiconductor chip on decoding DNA directly by means of voltage changes.
There are over 1.2 million wells on the surface of the chip, with strands of DNA attached to the bottom of each well by a bead. The detector at the bottom of the well then senses the acidity of the solution in each well, which rises every time a new unit added to the DNA strands on the bead. The cycle goes on until the DNA strand identified.
This is not the first time that Dr. Rothberg created a DNA sequencing device as he developed other DNA sequencing devices.. Before sequencing Dr. Moore DNA, he already sequences James Watson’s genome with another DNA sequencing machine. Dr. Watson is the co-founder of the structure of DNA.
Dr. Rothberg discovered that the possibility of using semiconductor chips for DNA sequencing while he was using the chips in detecting electrical signal across neural tissue.
At the moment, Dr. Rothberg thinks that semiconductor chips are the answer to lower the price of DNA sequencing. The cost of sequencing Dr. Moore’s genome is $200,000, but the price is lower than the previous attempt to sequence a human’s genome. Just for comparison, the cost of sequencing Dr. Watson’s genome was $5.7 million in 2008.