Roche and IBM are teaming up to develop new technology that could push the cost of genomic sequencing to as low as $100.
Roche will fund research at IBM as its subsidiary 454 Life Sciences collaborates with the sequencing scientists at Big Blue. They've been developing single-molecule sequencing that can analyze a gene molecule as it passes through a tiny nanopore on a silicon chip. That technology significantly reduces the time it takes to decode DNA. And the companies say that their approach can reduce costs to as low as $100 to $1,000 while significantly improving the quality of the work.
"This is a very important partnership for us as it will help us in one of our core fields of personalized medicine," said Ulrich Schwoerer, head of global marketing at Roche 454. "The new technology should not only help us bring costs down, but also improve quality and speed, which is of paramount importance for patients and clients."
The cost of sequencing has been tumbling rapidly as various startups race toward the Holy Grail of high-quality gene sequencing for less than $1,000.
- here's the story from the Wall Street Journal
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