The history of DNA sequencing

Abstract

During the last decade, the cost of DNA sequencing technologies has decreased several orders of magnitude, with the proportional increase of speed and throughput. Human Genome Project took almost 15 years to complete the sequence of the human genome. With the second and third generation technologies, this can be done in the matter of days or hours. This progress and availability of sequencing instruments to virtually every researcher leads to replacing of many techniques with DNA sequencing and opens new venues of research. DNA sequencing is used to investigate basic biological phenomena, and is probably going to be increasingly used in the context of health care (preimplantation diagnostics, oncology, infectious diseases). Current trends are aiming towards the price of 1000$ for sequencing of one human genome. Without any doubt, we can expect improvement of existing and the development of fourth generation technologies in the coming years.

Keywords

• dna sequencing
• genome
• molecular biology