Why is next-generation RNA sequencing important to the future of medicine?
Next-generation sequencing represents a potential revolution in medicine for many reasons. Number one, it’s bringing down the cost of sequencing the human genome. We’re not yet at the point that we will sequence everyone’s genome as a routine part of medical care, but that day is not too far off in the future and the SOLiD platform brings us closer to that goal. Once we can achieve routine genome sequencing, it would mean that at some point early in your life your genome would be sequenced and that information would be used throughout your lifetime to help guide your healthcare through personalized medicine. But that’s still a few years off. Right now the research that’s being done on the SOLiD platform spans a very broad area of biology. It is allowing us to see data sets that were simply not available and couldn’t have been generated before. This next-generation sequencing is transforming our view of some of the fundamental questions about how cells work and how multi-cellular organi
