4 ms·

Bid To Have Your Whole Genome Sequenced On Ebay

14 points by kkleiner 17y ago

zackattack 17y ago
Can someone please explain the difference between having your whole genome sequenced, and the product by 23andme et alia?
- kkleiner 17y ago
  Many might mistakenly think that genomes are already being sequenced for $1,000 by companies like 23andme and decodeme, but these companies do not offer full genome sequencing. Instead they only analyze a few hundred thousand hot spots in your dna called SNP’s that can tell you lots of interesting things about your dna, but not the whole story. Fully sequencing every single one of the approximately 3 billion base pairs of your dna is a completely different scenario and the price of doing this is coming down rapidly.
- Femur 17y ago
  Having your genome sequenced means reading every 'letter' of your DNA. 23andMe, on the other hand, tests your DNA for 'SNPs' which are defined variations in human DNA. A great explanation of SNPs comes from 23 and me's website: https://www.23andme.com/gen101/snps/ https://www.23andme.com/gen101/snps/
  - ComputerGuru 17y ago
    Yes, but they do give you an entire dump of your raw Genome that you can save to your PC... soon enough you'll be able to download a free program to analyze that data :D
    - russss 17y ago
      No, it's not an entire dump. 23andMe only decode certain bits of your DNA which are known to be interesting - they call this "genotyping" as opposed to "sequencing", which is decoding the entire genome.
- davidmathers 17y ago
  Most of your genome is shared by all mammals > all humans > all humans with your common ancestry. So it's not very interesting. 23andme gives you the 650,000 bits of your genome that are most interesting.
davidmathers 17y ago
Wait, Venter: $10 Million 2007: $1 Million 2008: $350,000 2009: $5,000 2010: $1,000 Um, like, holy fuck.
- zach 17y ago
  2015: Your DNA on a t-shirt for $30 at a mall kiosk.
- Femur 17y ago
  >Um, like, holy fuck. No doubt. Exponential trends like these are all over the place (life expectancy, CPU performance, etc...) One of my favorites is life expectancy [1]: 1850: 38 1900: 48 1950: 66 2000: 74 2004: ~76 This kind of trending is one of the foundational aspects of Ray Kurzweil and Co's singularity forecasts. [1] http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html
  - nazgulnarsil 17y ago
    um...that progression of life expectancy isn't exponential.
    - eru 17y ago
      Perhaps you can fit it to the following form (twiddling with parameters a and b): life expectancy = (maximum life expectancy) - a * exp(-time*b) If yes, you could still call it exponential in a certain sense of the word. But I doubt that will be very helpful.

14 points by kkleiner 17y ago

Can someone please explain the difference between having your whole genome sequenced, and the product by 23andme et alia?

kkleiner 17y ago
Many might mistakenly think that genomes are already being sequenced for $1,000 by companies like 23andme and decodeme, but these companies do not offer full genome sequencing. Instead they only analyze a few hundred thousand hot spots in your dna called SNP’s that can tell you lots of interesting things about your dna, but not the whole story. Fully sequencing every single one of the approximately 3 billion base pairs of your dna is a completely different scenario and the price of doing this is coming down rapidly.
Femur 17y ago
Having your genome sequenced means reading every 'letter' of your DNA. 23andMe, on the other hand, tests your DNA for 'SNPs' which are defined variations in human DNA. A great explanation of SNPs comes from 23 and me's website: https://www.23andme.com/gen101/snps/ https://www.23andme.com/gen101/snps/
- ComputerGuru 17y ago
  Yes, but they do give you an entire dump of your raw Genome that you can save to your PC... soon enough you'll be able to download a free program to analyze that data :D
  - russss 17y ago
    No, it's not an entire dump. 23andMe only decode certain bits of your DNA which are known to be interesting - they call this "genotyping" as opposed to "sequencing", which is decoding the entire genome.
davidmathers 17y ago
Most of your genome is shared by all mammals > all humans > all humans with your common ancestry. So it's not very interesting. 23andme gives you the 650,000 bits of your genome that are most interesting.

davidmathers 17y ago

Wait, Venter: $10 Million 2007: $1 Million 2008: $350,000 2009: $5,000 2010: $1,000 Um, like, holy fuck.

zach 17y ago
2015: Your DNA on a t-shirt for $30 at a mall kiosk.
Femur 17y ago
>Um, like, holy fuck. No doubt. Exponential trends like these are all over the place (life expectancy, CPU performance, etc...) One of my favorites is life expectancy [1]: 1850: 38 1900: 48 1950: 66 2000: 74 2004: ~76 This kind of trending is one of the foundational aspects of Ray Kurzweil and Co's singularity forecasts. [1] http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  um...that progression of life expectancy isn't exponential.
  - eru 17y ago
    Perhaps you can fit it to the following form (twiddling with parameters a and b): life expectancy = (maximum life expectancy) - a * exp(-time*b) If yes, you could still call it exponential in a certain sense of the word. But I doubt that will be very helpful.