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What would you do if you could sequence everything?

Nature Biotechnology volume 26, pages 1125–1133 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

It could be argued that the greatest transformative aspect of the Human Genome Project has been not the sequencing of the genome itself, but the resultant development of new technologies. A host of new approaches has fundamentally changed the way we approach problems in basic and translational research. Now, a new generation of high-throughput sequencing technologies promises to again transform the scientific enterprise, potentially supplanting array-based technologies and opening up many new possibilities. By allowing DNA/RNA to be assayed more rapidly than previously possible, these next-generation platforms promise a deeper understanding of genome regulation and biology. Significantly enhancing sequencing throughput will allow us to follow the evolution of viral and bacterial resistance in real time, to uncover the huge diversity of novel genes that are currently inaccessible, to understand nucleic acid therapeutics, to better integrate biological information for a complete picture of health and disease at a personalized level and to move to advances that we cannot yet imagine.

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Figure 1: The number of publications with keywords for nucleic acid detection and sequencing technologies.
Figure 2: Relative sample and data throughputs for different nucleic acid detection and sequencing technologies.
Figure 3: What can high-throughput sequencing do for you?

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Acknowledgements

We thank Jennifer MacArthur (Helicos BioSciences) for assistance and critical reading of the manuscript and Stephen Quake (Stanford University) for critical reading and comments.

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  1. Helicos BioSciences, One Kendall Square, Cambridge, 02139, Massachusetts, USA

    Avak Kahvejian & John F Thompson

  2. Dana Farber Cancer Institute, 44 Binney Street, Boston, 02115, Massachusetts, USA

    John Quackenbush

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A.K. and J.F.T. are employees and J.Q. is on the scientific advisory board of Helicos BioSciences Corp.

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Kahvejian, A., Quackenbush, J. & Thompson, J. What would you do if you could sequence everything?. Nat Biotechnol 26, 1125–1133 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt1494

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