The Cost of Sequencing a Human Genome

Advances in the field of genomics over the past quarter-century have led to substantial reductions in the cost of genome sequencing.

The underlying costs associated with different methods and strategies for sequencing genomes are of great interest because they influence the scope and scale of almost all genomics research projects.

A single 'representative' copy of the human genome is 3 billion bases in size, whereas a given person's actual genome is 6 billion bases.

The Human Genome Project ( HGP ) generated a 'reference' sequence of all parts of each human chromosome (totaling ~3 billion bases) The estimated cost for sequencing a human genome in 2006 (i.e., roughly a decade ago ) is estimated $300 million worldwide.

The estimate is difficult to estimate the costs associated with the 'human genome mapping phase' of the HGP , but it was certainly in the tens of millions of dollars .

The original projected cost for the U.S. 's contribution to the HGP was $3 billion ; in actuality, the Project ended up taking less time and requiring less funding - $2.7 billion .

The generation of a person's genome sequence is a notably different endeavor than that of sequencing a 'reference' genome.