Contest To Sequence Centenarians Kicks Off 74
ananyo writes "The first competitor has swaggered up to the starting line for a contest that aims to push the limits of genome-sequencing technology. The X Prize Foundation of Playa Vista, California, is offering a US$10 million prize to the first team to accurately sequence the genomes of 100 people aged 100 or older, for $1,000 or less apiece and within 30 days. Ion Torrent, part of Life Technologies of Carlsbad, California, believes that its semiconductor-based technology gives it a shot, and on 23 July it announced that it will compete. The Archon Genomics X Prize competition, to be held in September 2013, is intended to spur technology, boost accuracy and drive down costs — currently $3,000–5,000 per genome. Peter Diamandis, the X Prize Foundation's chief executive, says that the contest will help to establish a standard for a 'medical grade' genome, with the high accuracy needed to diagnose or treat a patient. This time, the X prize Foundation has relaxed the time frame, allowing competitors 30 days — rather than the 10 specified by the 2006 contest — and focused on centenarians, who might carry gene variants promoting longevity. The winning team will be the first to sequence all 100 genomes to 98% completion, with less than one error per million base pairs, and to determine which variants appear on which of the paired chromosomes."
epigenetic data may be more important (Score:4, Insightful)
inherited state (Lamarck wasn't totally wrong, it seems) and life history changes to the gene expression may matter as much, or more, than the raw nuclear and mitochondrial sequence.
anyone know of a low-cost tool to capture that data?
Re:Why's this a good thing? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the less trollish and flamebait answer I can find. If our social model does not allow for older people who want to live to survive longer, it is a sign that we must change our social model. I agree that higher longevity will cause troubles, but these are solvable problems. If we didn't accept to change our societies to improve them, we would still have slaves, routine torture of prisoners, death penalty (sorry if you live in US) and no labor laws.
I know that my grandfather would have happily given all his belongings to get a few more years with his new friends, so surely, there is a solution.
Re:Why's this a good thing? (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, with the same logic, why not kill all those who are unemployed, sick, in prison, not contributing anything worthwhile to society, .... ...
Instead of spending money on shitty countries in Africa, why not kill them all? Less HIV, less famine, less pollution, less immigrants,
Would solve a lot of problems, wouldn't it?
Or we could also kill all the Mexicans. After all, that would solve the drug wars.
Or kill all the Arabs or the Israelis. Either one would solve most if not all the problems in the Middle East.
You've definitely convinced me. That's certainly how rational, educated people in government think.