Dr. Friend found a company willing to sequence the patients' entire genetic codes for free.
At the core of this progress is the improving ability to sequence the human genome.
The first step is to sequence the patient's DNA in order to uncover the cancer-causing mutation.
New machines from IBM and EMC will replace the supercomputers used to sequence the human genome.
Brazilian sugar growers are helping to finance another new project, to sequence the genome of sugar cane.
The entire chromosomes of several bacteria were shattered, using ultrasound, into pieces small enough to sequence by themselves.
Craig Venter tied (some say beat) the mighty U.S. government in the race to sequence the human genome.
For when the new venture is at full capacity it will be able to sequence 100m bases a day.
Even, for that matter, to sequence it any way that may feel right.
He made headlines racing the government to sequence the human genome in 2000.
This year he will start enrolling 6, 000 alcoholics in seven European countries in an ambitiousproject to sequence 150 genes in the brain.
Before that, he was involved in the effort to sequence the human genome.
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Companies that make machines to sequence DNA like to compare themselves to the personal computer industry in its early days.
In order to sequence Haemophilus, Dr Venter used a more direct approach.
From this humble beginning it now plans to sequence 200 full human genomes as part of an international collaboration called the 1, 000-genome project.
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And some parts, particularly those where the same short pattern of base pairs is repeated over and over again, remain difficult to sequence well.
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So far, the example that has gotten the most attention is Craig Venter's effort to sequence ocean microbes from the deck of his 100-foot sailboat.
The researchers, along with other scientists across the world, are now working to sequence the complete genome of other close relatives to humans, including gorillas and orangutans.
It's also the 10th anniversary of the completion of the Human Genome Project, which set out to sequence the more than 3 billion letters in our genetic code.
This morning, scientists at the National Genome Health Research Institute announced plans to sequence the genes of 1, 000 patients with heart disease using the machines being made by Illumina.
Another sign of how fast things are moving is the excitement being generated by Oxford Nanopore, a company that seeks to sequence DNA strands by pushing them through tiny holes.
And the American Department of Agriculture is to pay for a team to sequence a strain of X. fastidiosa that causes Pierce's disease in grapevines, which is currently afflicting California's vineyards.
Though the firm has proved the principle, a single pore would take about 70 days to sequence an entire human genome (which has roughly the same number of letters as 1, 000 Russian novels).
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They enlisted the help of several scientists, including Eric Lander of the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who went on to become a leading light in the effort to sequence the human genome.
For an era of targeted therapies, Private Health runs a full battery of molecular diagnostics "to sequence the entire three billion base pairs of somebody's DNA in a couple of hours, " Mr. Michelson marvels.
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The monumental effort to sequence the entire human genome -- to spell out the 3 billion or so combinations of those letters in a cell's DNA -- is keeping a lot of academic and commercial laboratories busy.
Illumina chief executive Jay Flatley has showed off an app that allowed him to read his DNA variants on a iPhone, and the initial customers to pay Illumina to sequence their DNA got their genomes on Macintosh computers.
That means that the PGM will be able to sequence 1 billion letters of DNA code in two hours, making it much more competitive with a rival machine, the MiSeq, developed by Illumina, which now dominates the sequencing business.
Further more exome sequencing is a questionable working model as companies will now be able to sequence a complete genome at a lower cost than one utilizing array exome capture and potential bias, why a company would offer that as the preferred service is odd.
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