$1,000 Genome in Two Hours by 2012, Says CEO of Ion Torrent

If Jonathan Rothberg is to be believed, we have not seen anything yet. Earlier this month he claimed the mythical “$1,000 genome” will be here next year. He made that claim at MIT’s Emerging Technology conference:  $1,000 Genome in Two Hours by 2012, Says CEO of Ion Torrent - Technology Review.

This claim has the potential to firmly establish personalized genomic medicine within the next two decades. If we can retool medical practitioners as rapidly as we can explore our genomes, we will be seeing amazing things. It will also add great power for those of us who use DNA testing as one of our tools to explore our family histories.

These amazing breakthroughs in science and medicine will make it even more imperative that we as a society develop appropriate legal and ethical norms for defining ownership, control and privacy that should be given to the vast amount of personal information that will be made available.