The $1,000 genome

The Wall Street Journal reports Soon, $1,000 will map your genes:

The quest to harness the power of DNA to develop personalized medicine is on the threshold of a major milestone: the $1,000 genome sequencing.

Life Technologies Corp., a Carlsbad, Calif., genomics company, plans to introduce Tuesday a machine it says will be able to map an individual's entire genetic makeup for $1,000 by the end of this year. Moreover, the machine and accompanying microchip technology, both developed by the company's Ion Torrent unit, will deliver the information in a day, the company says.

That's pretty amazing.  The cost of mapping an entire genome is rapidly approaching the cost of individual genetic tests; you can imagine that soon it will be just as inexpensive to sequence an entire genome as to look for a particular gene locus.  (Of course, for cancer treatment it will still be necessary to sequence the genome of a tumor, as well as the normal genes, to determine the defects that caused the cancer and guide treatment.)

The role of pathologists in interpreting these tests and working with oncologists and other clinicians to determine treatment will likely expand, and perhaps genetic subspecialties will form.