TechnologyReview: The British government says that it plans to hire the U.S. gene-sequencing company Illumina to sequence 100,000 human genomes in what is the largest national project to decode the DNA of a populace. ...BGI bid for this work but their transition to the upgraded Complete Genomics technology is still in progress. This delay has affected our cognitive genomics project as well.
Some other countries are also considering large national sequencing projects. The U.K. project will focus on people with cancer, as well as adults and children with rare diseases. Because all Britons are members of the National Health Service, the project expects to be able to compare DNA data with detailed centralized health records (see “Why the U.K. Wants a Genomic National Health Service”).
While the number of genomes to be sequenced is 100,000, the total number of Britons participating in the study is smaller, about 70,000. That is because for cancer patients Genomics England intends to obtain the sequence of both their inherited DNA as well as that of their cancers.
Big data sets are also being assembled in the US (note in this case only SNP genotyping; cost is less than $100 per person now):
AKESOgen announced today that it has been awarded a $7.5M contract by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for genotyping samples from U.S. veterans as part of the Million Veteran Program (MVP). This award covers the genotyping of 105,000 veterans in the first year of a five year contract.My prediction is that of order a million phenotype:genotype pairs will be enough to deduce the genetic architecture of complex traits such as height or cognitive ability. SNPs will be enough to solve most of the problem, so that cost is now ~ $100M or less -- interested billionaires please contact me :-)
"The VA's Million Veteran Program is one of the largest genetic initiatives ever undertaken in the US and its visionary genomics and genetics approach will provide new insights about how genes affect health. The goal is to improve healthcare for veterans by understanding the genetic basis of many common conditions. The data will ultimately be beneficial to the healthcare of all veterans and of the wider community. We are delighted to have been selected by the VA for this unique endeavor and we will provide genetic data of the highest quality to the VA." said Bob Boisjoli, CEO of AKESOgen. To fulfill the VA contract, AKESOgen will utilize a custom designed array based genotyping solution from Affymetrix, Inc. ...
