These days, if you want to have your entire genome sequenced, you need to spend about a million dollars and wait for months. But the Archon X Prize for Genomics—an international competition for speedy gene mapping—might change this by giving companies a huge incentive to develop better DNA sequencing technologies. The $10 million prize, first announced in late 2006, was donated by Stewart Blusson, a philanthropist and mining multimillionaire. Marc Hodosh, senior director of the Archon X Prize, explains why genomics was chosen for an X Prize and predicts what lies ahead for the field.
