Your Own Personal Genome: Coming Soon?

It dispenses with the laborious and costly cloning of the sample by bacteria, which is the precursor to the traditional sequencing method.

Instead, the sample is directly amplified by a process called polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The long string of "rungs" is then broken up and unraveled by parallel sequencers, and the data then fed into a powerful computer for reassembly and analysis.

In all, Watson's genome took less than a million dollars (629,000 euros) and a mere two months to produce, the study says.

This fast, low-cost approach "is an important milestone in our ability to connect 'personalized genomes' to 'personalized medicine'," say its authors.

Biologists are working hard on deciphering the code, seeking to identify flawed genes that may pass on inherited disease or expose the individual to enhanced risk of cancer, smoking addiction, obesity or alcoholism, for instance.

In the future, they hope, an individual may get medicine that is tailor-made for his or her genome, to maximize the benefits and minimize the side-effects.

Related Links:

National Human Genome Research Institute

Center for Inherited Disease Research

Gene-Scanning Technique