Book review: “The $1000 Genome” by Kevin Davies
So in my quest to do a bit of reading around the industry I now find myself in, I’ve lined up a few books. I actually started “The $1000 Genome” in the weeks prior to my interview at OGT, and the fact that I only finished it a couple of weeks ago (5 months later) should not be taken as a reflection on the quality of the book.
I think one thing people will be asking is whether a book written in 2010 is still relevant at the tail end of 2011 in such a fast-moving industry, and I think it’s a testament to Kevin Davies writing that it is.
I haven’t read either of Kevin’s previous two books, “Cracking the Genome” (no explanation required as to what that might be about [but note that the UK title of this book is "The Sequence"]) and “Breakthrough” on the race to find the breast cancer gene, I probably will purchase these when the existing book backlog is cleared.
One thing this book has in spades is an excellent history to how we got where we are today, both in terms of the personalities and the companies that have drive the NGS revolution. Consequently some about familiar names such as 23andMe and the small sequencing startups that were swallowed by the industry biogiants may be familiar, but the book charts them from setup to acquisition and the movement of key staff between them. For me alone the history of NGS and emergent personal genomics is probably worth the cover price of the book alone. There is also no skimping on the next ‘next-generation’ contenders.
Also well documented is the rivalry between the main DTC companies, 23andMe, deCODE and Navigenics, and it’s interesting to see how they stratify in terms of panels offered, risk calculation and how focused they are on ‘actionable’ information. It’s also worth delving into the longer term research-led strategies of these companies, and the regulatory hurdles they are already embroiled in.
It’s actually quite poignant how quickly we’ve moved from sequencing a reference genome, to sequencing an individual person’s genome, to having dozens, and then hundreds of full genomes. This was brought home in a telecon I had this week with a research institute who figured they had sequenced 160 genomes in 2010/2011. As with all science what was once a Nature paper becomes quickly routine when NGS hardware is ramping up capacity as much as it is. This is also strongly highlighted in the book.
The final section deals with the likely arrival of genome-led P4 medicine, the sequencing X-Prize and wraps up just how close we are to the $1000 genome. The book is actually quite light on price as a driver, and prefers to point out what could be done when it’s cheap enough to do so. With excursions into the authors own genomic landscape and thorough referencing throughout, it’s a book I can happily recommend to anyone in the field, or with a passing interest in it.