Archon Genomics X PRIZE Gains a Competitor
The genomics prize offered by the X PRIZE foundation is of interest to the aging research community because it aims to sequence a great deal of genetic data from centenarians:
The Archon Genomics X PRIZE [is] an incentivized prize competition that will award $10 million to the first team to rapidly, accurately and economically sequence 100 whole human genomes to a level of accuracy never before achieved. The 100 human genomes to be sequenced in this competition will be donated by 100 centenarians (ages 100 or older) from all over the world.
As noted by the press in the past few days, this prize initiative has gained an entrant:
A genome-sequencing contest announced six years ago finally has its first entrant: Life Technologies Corp.'s Ion Torrent, which on Monday said it was entering the fray. The Archon Genomics X Prize will award $10 million to the first team that sequences the complete genomes of 100 people aged 100 or older in 30 days or less, for no more than $1,000 each, and with an error rate of no more than 0.0001 percent.No one else has been game since the contest was announced in 2006, when it would have taken 33 years and $100 million to do 100 genomes, estimates Ion Torrent founder and CEO Dr. Jonathan Rothberg. In January, the company said its Ion Proton Sequencer was ready to sequence a complete human genome in a day at a cost of $1,000.
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"All the numbers work," said Rothberg. "We'll have eight Protons (sequencers) running at a dedicated facility with about a dozen people, and we'll be able to sequence up to 100 billion bases every two hours."
That raw data must be assembled into their order on the 23 human chromosomes, a task analogous to putting the pages of the New York City phone book into the right sequence. The assembly process will take Ion Torrent most of the 30 days it has under X Prize rules.
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Other companies have until May 31, 2013 to enter the ring. The countdown will start on September 5, 2013, when a judge from the foundation will deliver vials containing the DNA of 100 centenarians to each sequencing team. Each will have until October 4 to determine the 100 genome sequences, with the winner determined by accuracy.
There is a certain amount of showmanship inherent in all research and technology prizes, part and parcel of attracting interest, raising funds, and educating the public, but it's hard to argue with a system that gets the job done. Research prizes, including the original X PRIZE for suborbital flight and the Methuselah Mouse Prize, have a long history of success in spurring development, accelerating fundraising, and creating a new cycle of progress in industries that were previously resting on their laurels.
@Reason - I'm confused. I thought your argument was against genomic sequencing of anything, but in this case with the X Prize focusing on sequencing complete genomes within a month (and Ion Torrent claming they can do it in ~1.5 days for about $1K), is it still useful in the fight against aging?
Could you clarify your position to the community? Thanks!
@VictorVictor5: The clarification is that "of interest" doesn't necessarily mean "directly and immediately useful."
A lot of aging research is very interesting, for all that it isn't the right or the most effective direction to produce immediate results. I'm expecting a raft of new papers to show up in a few years based on the data produced by the genomic prize, for example, but I don't expect this to do more than add new information to the story of how differences in metabolism interact with the aging process.
Continued improvement in sequencing speed is worth keeping an eye on, as it is a useful marker for general improvements in biotechnology. The cheaper it becomes, the cheaper a lot of other technologies are becoming, and the faster things go.