Sunday, August 18, 2013

Overview of the evolution of genome technology - Richard Wilson

This talk (Overview of the evolution of genome technology by Richard Wilson) is not very technical but it gives a good view of what it is like to grow up with both Moore's law and what I would call the Genomic Sequencer Law that we featured in the The Steamrollers last year. While the start of the video is a little slow (but worth it), you might want to skip to about 18 minutes into the talk. What are some of the take -home ideas there ? Many, here are a few I wrote down:


  • In the case of Cancer, we are lucky to have a built in control (base reference) Genome as opposed to other diseases. My opinion is that it is very likely that rare diseases will be taken care off first as they are the first to have individuals with very different genomes from the larger population. 
  • Right now, genome sequencing turn-around time is about a month (best we can do now).
  • Richard relates a dramatic experience of one of their physician who was part of their group and who found a mutation that could be targeted with a kidney cancer drug. Remission took place in 12 days, and get this, he got tenure :-) Video is below. Enjoy!

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