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Veritas Genetics, a Boston-based biotech company co-founded by Harvard geneticist George Church, is claiming it can now sequence your entire genome — the genetic blueprint inside all your cells that makes you who and what you are — for less than $1,000. That price tag includes an interpretation of the results and genetic counseling.
If the service pans out, it could breach a long-standing barrier in genetic medicine.
Reaching the $1,000 genome
The so-called $1,000 genome has long been a holy grail in genetics. The company Illumina reached this milestone in 2014, but that didn't include the cost of interpreting the results, said Veritas CEO and co-founder Mirza Cifric.
"We've known now for over a year it's been possible to sequence a genome for less than $1000," Cifric told Business Insider — "the limiting factor's been the analysis."
Veritas says it was the first company to deliver the complete $1,000 genome — using Illumina's sequencing technology — in 2015, when it offered to sequence the genomes of nearly 5,000 participants in the Personal Genome Project (PGP) at Harvard Medical School.
"Now that the whole genome is this accessible...