Imec has announced a breakthrough on genomic research. The Leuven-based research center, together with the University Hospital of Leuven (UZ Leuven), KU Leuven, Ghent University, Agilent, Western Digital and Bluebee, unveiled the Genome Analytics Platform (GAP). According to Imec, the GAP is able to fully analyze 48 genome samples, all within 48 hours. Moreover, they claim to achieve this in a cost-effective manner – close to 1,000 dollars per genome sequencing.
Beginning of 2000, when the first human genome was published, the scientific community agreed that they, together with the industry, had to set a goal – the ‘1,000-dollar genome’. They believed that when it would only cost 1,000 dollars, it would become feasible to sequence the genome of every patient that needed it for better, personalized treatment.
However, just cost-efficient sequencing is not the whole answer to realizing personalized medicine. Turning the raw sequencing data into useful information requires a lot of compute and storage power. Previously, the analysis and storage of the genome data had been too expensive and could take up to several weeks.
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