NEW YORK — A biotechnology company announced it has developed a machine to decode an individual’s DNA in a day for $1,000, a long-sought price goal for making the genome useful for medical care.
Life Technologies Corp. said Tuesday it was taking orders for the technology, which it expects to deliver in about a year.
The Carlsbad, Calif., company said three major research institutions had already signed up for the $149,000 machine: Baylor College of Medicine, Yale School of Medicine and Broad Institute of Cambridge, Mass.
A second company, Illumina of San Diego, also introduced a new technology Tuesday that it said will decode an entire genome in about 24 hours. Its statement did not estimate the cost per genome.
The machines, called sequencers, allow scientists to identify the arrangement of the 3 billion chemical building blocks that make up someone’s DNA.
Since the first sequencing of the basic human genome was announced at the White House in 2000, the costs of sequencing DNA have steadily tumbled. The $1,000 target has long been cited as a key step toward making the technique practical for doctors to use to help their patients, such as for revealing vulnerabilities to certain diseases or tailoring medical treatment.
Richard Gibbs, who directs the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor, said, “We will see if the machines really perform as well as described (in terms of cost and accuracy). We’re optimistic.”
