Up to 100,000 people in England will have their entire genetic makeup mapped in the first stage of an ambitious public health programme the government hopes could revolutionise the treatment and prevention of cancer and other diseases.
The first complete map of the human genome, completed in 2003, took more than a decade to complete, at a price of £750m. However, since then the cost of genome sequencing had been “falling off a cliff”, making it viable for everyday use, said Sir John Bell, professor of medical sciences at Oxford University: “We’re headed for £100 a genome. We’re not there yet. But that will happen in the very near future.”
View the original article here: DNA of 100,000 people to be mapped for NHS
