Costs of gene synthesis per bases pair have fallen 50-fold, halving every 32 months. At the same time, the accuracy of gene synthesis technologies has improved significantly.
If these technologies continue to improve at the exponential rates achieved historically, the cost of sequencing will fall to less than $0.01 per base pair by 2010 and the cost of gene synthesis will fall to less than $0.10 per base pair.
Right now the cost of synthesizing a base [using conventional technology] is about 10 cents. That’s the current street price for raw oligonucleotides. For synthesizing simple genes, it’s more like $1.30 a base. [Our method] can manufacture oligonucleotides at .01 cent per base.
it [DNA sequencing and synthesis] is actually a very fundamental concept. There is almost no synthesis that doesn’t involve sequencing, and vice versa. And that is why I have really emphasized this connection in my lab. They are very synergistic.
Projected DNA synthesis costs (halving cost about every 2.5 years)
| 2006 | 10 cents per BP |
| 2007 | 0.01 to 5 cents per BP |
| 2010 | 0.005 to 2 cents per BP |
| 2013 | 0.002 to 1 cents per BP |
| 2015 | 0.001 to 0.5 cents per BP |
| 2017 | 0.0005 to 0.02 cents per BP |
| 2007 | 100 BP synthesized for 1 cent |
| 2010 | 200 BP for 1 cent |
| 2013 | 400 BP for 1 cent |
| 2015 | 1000 BP for 1 cent |
| 2017 | 2000 BP for 1 cent |
Projected DNA synthesis maximum lengths (doubling every 14 months)
| YEAR | Maximum sequence length |
| 2007 | 45K (common) to 580K BP (record) |
| 2009 | 200K (common) to 2M BP |
| 2010 | 400K (common) to 4M BP |
| 2012 | 1.5M BP to 16M BP |
| 2014 | 6M BP to 64M BP |
| 2016 | 25M BP to 250M BP |
The global market for DNA sequencing technology and related services exceeded $7 billion in 2006. The market for synthesis reagents and synthesis services is nearly $1 billion.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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