$ 10 Million Prize Offered for Rapid, Cheap Genome Sequencing

[Guest guest]

[Eventually, everyone's genes will be sequenced, probably at birth. A

big concern, of course, is keeping this information private.

Insurance companies would love to exclude anyone who might cause them

to pay out on claims.]

October 4, 2006

$10 Million Prize Offered for Genome Sequencing

By NICHOLAS WADE

A $10 million prize for cheap and rapid sequencing of the human genome

was announced today by the X Prize Foundation of Santa , Calif.

The terms of the prize require competitors to sequence 100 human

genomes of their choice within 10 days, and, within six months, those

of a further 100 individuals chosen by the foundation.

Diamandis, the chairman of the foundation, said that the second

list would include patients nominated by disease advocacy groups and

celebrities. Those who have already signed up include the

astrophysicist Hawking; the television interviewer Larry King;

, the co-founder of Microsoft; the financier Milken,

and Google's co-founder Larry Page.

The X Prize Foundation came to fame two years ago when its prize for

building a spacecraft was won by a team led by Burt Rutan and

. The foundation now plans a series of prizes to motivate

inventors and entrepreneurs, with its first two subjects being the

human genome and a fuel-efficient car.

The genome prize announced today brought together two former rivals,

Dr. Craig Venter of the Venter Institute and Dr. Francis , head

of the National Human Genome Research Institute, which financed the

government's project to sequence or decode the genome.

Both the government and Dr. Venter sequenced draft versions of the

human genome, and the cost of the version the government completed in

2003 was probably around $500 million, though no precise figure has

been given.

Some experts foresee a medical revolution if the cost of DNA

sequencing could be brought down low enough that a person's genome

could be decoded as part of routine treatment. Several companies have

developed novel methods of sequencing, with the eventual goal of

decoding a human genome for as little as $10,000.

The X Prize Foundation has not yet determined a critical parameter of

its prize, that of how complete the genomes need to be. The present

" complete " human genome has many gaps and is only as complete as

present technology can make it.

Unlike the case with the space prize, the human genome prize is being

offered in a field where the government has a vigorous grant program

to encourage new technology and several companies are trying eagerly

to accomplish the same goal for commercial reasons.

But Dr. Rothberg, founder of one of these companies, 454 Life

Sciences, said the prize was welcome nonetheless. " We formed 454 to

sequence genomes economically, so it doesn't change our mission, " he

said. " But it surely motivates our employees and energizes the

investment community. "

Dr. Rothberg's company will compete for the prize. He said he expected

human genomes could be sequenced for $10,000 within 10 years, assuming

that some reasonable standard of completeness was required, meaning

one that allowed gaps for the regions that are still too difficult to

decode. These regions are thought to contain few, if any, genes.

The idea for the Genome X prize grew out of a $500,000 prize offered

in 2003 by Dr. Venter for being the first to sequence the human genome

for just $1,000. The $10 million for the X Prize is being put up by

Dr. Blusson, president of Archon Minerals Ltd and

co-discoverer of the Ekati diamond mine at Lac de Gras in Canada.

The only individual genome sequenced so far belongs to Dr. Venter,

whose draft of the human genome prepared by his company Celera

Genomics turned out to be his own. In addition. The 454 Life Sciences

company has been working to decode the genome of Dr. ,

co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, but it has not yet completed

it. The genome decoded by the government was a mosaic of genomes from

anonymous individuals.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company