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Walter Gilbert won the Nobel Prize in 1980 in Chemistry for his contribution to sequence DNA, or “determination of base sequences in a nucleic acid”. Mohit Kumar Jolly, researcher at Rice University and contributor to The Conversation, interviewed him at the 2014 Lindau Nobel Laureates Meeting.


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You received the Nobel Prize for DNA sequencing. When do you think we will be able to get our genomes sequenced cheaply?

Sequencing is definitely becoming cheaper and more accessible. One can sequence a couple of full genomes today for less than US$50,000. In 1985, human DNA sequencing cost was thought to be around US$3 billion. I hope that by 2020, drug stores can do genome sequencing for a few hundred dollars.

But, one must be careful – whole genome sequencing is not at all accurate for medical diagnosis. I got my own genome sequenced, but they missed the local rearrangements in my genome – it was not well-curated.

Also, it is common belief that once we can sequence the genome, we can edit it to have babies with higher IQ for...