“It really hurts” My finger drips with blood. “God… do you want me to do it for you?”
“Sure, I guess” Before I can say anything more, she stabs the needle into my finger again. And again. And again. More rivulets of blood along my pinky, my eyes tear up, and she squeezes my finger over the test tube. “OK, you can go clean up.”
The cost of sequencing has fallen faster than Moore’s law. Source
The first human genome took $2.3 billion dollars and 13 years to sequence.
Today, you can use an Oxford Nanopore ($1000 dollars) to sequence whatever DNA you want in less than 48 hours. Or so their marketing materials say.
Then vs now ( 3730xl DNA Analyzer machines from Applied Biosystems vs Oxford Nanopore )
Right now, if you want to sequence your own DNA, you have to send blood or a cheek swab to some shady third party that, for all I know, gives my DNA away on a USB stick with 10,000 other peoples’ DNA in a dark corner of Shenzhen.
Some friends and I became curious: How hard would it be for us to buy a Nanopore and sequence DNA, using makeshift equipment in our bedroom?
How do you sequence DNA?
The goal is to get from 10ml of blood to a string of 3 billion A’s, C’s, G’s, and T’s.
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