生命技术公司承诺个人基因组测序成本降到1000美元

2012年1月10日，生命技术公司（Life Technologies）CEO Gregory Lucier宣布了一项随离子质子测序仪（Ion Proton Sequencer）的推出而实现的测序技术最新突破。离子质子测序仪是离子个人基因组仪器（Ion Personal Genome Machine, PGM）的更快速版本。这款最新的仪器是Ion Torrent公司前CEO Jonathan Rothberg的心血之作，Ion Torrent公司在2010年被位于加州卡尔斯巴德的生命技术公司收购。新的测序仪采用半导体技术进行DNA序列阅读，同时极大提高了芯片的孔网密度(well density)。Rothberg介绍说“采用旧的芯片，人类的一根头发丝可能覆盖400个孔(well)，但是使用新的芯片，却可能覆盖10000个孔。而且，新的芯片上集成了氢气传感器（当一个核苷酸整合到DNA中时，会释放出氢气）。光检技术会因为孔网密度的增加而降低速度，而新的半导体技术则相对运行更快。Rothberg说第一张芯片在两个小时内可读完100万个孔，更新的芯片将会读到1亿个孔。尽管通过这张芯片获得的数据到2月中旬才会公布，但是该公司宣称一个人类基因组的测序将会在两个小时内完成，而且材料成本将仅有$1000。新的仪器成本为$149,000。在Lucier宣布数小时后，位于San Diego的Illumina公司宣布将升级他们的HiSeq 2000，这将会在1天内完成一个人类基因组的测序。

消息来自Nature Biotechnology, 2012(February), 30:126. 

英文原文：

On January 10, Life Technologies' CEO Gregory Lucier announced the latest breakthrough in sequencing technology with the launch of the Ion Proton Sequencer, a faster version of its Ion Personal Genome Machine (PGM). The machine is the brainchild of Jonathan Rothberg, former CEO of Ion Torrent, which was bought by Life Technologies of Carlsbad, California, in 2010. The new sequencer uses semi-conductor technology to read DNA sequences, coupled with a dramatic ramp-up in the chip's well density. “[With the old chip] if you took out a human hair and put it over a well, you would cover 400 wells. [On] our new chip, you'll cover 10,000 wells,” says Rothberg. In addition, the new chip moves the hydrogen ion sensor (hydrogen is released when a nucleotide is incorporated into DNA) onto the chip. Unlike light detection technologies that slow down as density increases, with semi-conductors, the rate is faster. “The first chip did a million wells in two hours, the new one will do a billion,” says Rothberg. Although data obtained from the chip won't be released until mid-February, the company reports that a human-sized genome can be sequenced in two hours, at a cost of $1,000 in materials. The new machine will cost $149,000. Within hours of Lucier's announcement, Life Technology's main competitor, Illumina of San Diego, announced an upgrade to their HiSeq 2000 that will sequence a human genome in a day.