Re: IBM & the Personal Genome (URL).
Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2009 9:30 pm
Interesting, though something is wrong here.
We're talking about a combination of computer technology and biological technology. Computer technology has Moore's Law which says things get either cheaper or faster by a factor of 2 every 18 months. I'm not familiar with a similar observation for biological science but somebody might know one. Based on personal observation (visits to my Doctor, etc.) costs keep going up although I'm probably also getting a benefit from better technology.
Either way, this doesn't compute:
We're talking about a combination of computer technology and biological technology. Computer technology has Moore's Law which says things get either cheaper or faster by a factor of 2 every 18 months. I'm not familiar with a similar observation for biological science but somebody might know one. Based on personal observation (visits to my Doctor, etc.) costs keep going up although I'm probably also getting a benefit from better technology.
Either way, this doesn't compute:
Since then, the field has accelerated. In the last four to five years, the cost of sequencing has been falling at a rate of tenfold annually, according to George M. Church, a Harvard geneticist. In a recent presentation in Los Angeles, Dr. Church said he expected the industry to stay on that curve, or some fraction of that improvement rate, for the foreseeable future.
