Archives - Biology: Page 38
Author: thelanguageguy (Tue Aug 16, 2005 9:52 am)
Title: Personal genomes
An article last week, posted on msbnc.com spoke of the new ease of obtaining your own personal genome sequence. Those folks up at Harvard are attempting to lower the cost of sequencing to $1,000 per genome. Can you imagine? Knowing your own sequence of A,T,C,and G? The method they use will bypass traditional electrophoresis technology where dideoxynucleotides are used to terminate DNA chains at each particular base. These fragments are then run in an agarose gel under an electric current. The fragments are separated according to size by the current, owing to the negative charge on DNA. The new method would use color-coded beads, a microscope, and a camera!!! I'll bet Frederick Sanger is freaking out!