California company claims faster, cheaper gene map

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A California company predicts it will soon be able to sequence an entire human gene map in four minutes, for just $1,000.

Pacific Biosciences says its new gene-sequencing machines are far faster than existing equipment, and will be able to do in minutes what it took the federally funded academic effort five years and $300 million to do, and genome pioneer Craig Venter nine months to do in 2000.

"It will change health care forever if it works," Hugh Martin, the chief executive officer of the company, said in a telephone interview on Monday.

The company presented its findings to a meeting in Florida on Saturday.

Last month Knome, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based personal genomics company, said it was offering people their own personal genome sequences at a cost of $350,000. Martin said he saw no reason for individuals to get their gene maps sequenced yet, and said his company's market was research labs.

"The real idea is to be able to sequence people fast enough and cheaply enough so we can turn some really interesting discovery problems in genetics and genetic diseases into software problems," Martin said.

"You can sequence 1,000 people who exhibit addictive behavior and 1,000 who don't and see if there any differences between them," Martin said.

Government backers of the project are equally enthusiastic.