WEBVTT

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I want you to imagine something for just a second.

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Picture spending an entire decade, and we're

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talking almost $3 billion here, just to read

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one single book. That is quite the expensive

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book. Right. I mean, you have these Massive teams

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of people all over the world working around the

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clock and they're deciphering this massive text

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Just letter by painstaking letter. Yeah a massive

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global undertaking exactly and then just a few

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years later You're walking through a big -box

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store during a holiday sale and you look over

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and you see that exact same book tossed into

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a discount bin for less than the price of like

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a new video game console. It really does sound

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like a complete exaggeration. I mean, nobody

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drops a price tag by billions of dollars that

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fast. But they did. They did. That trajectory

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is the literal historical reality of the most

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important book ever written. And that is your

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biological blueprint, your human genome. Well,

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welcome to today's deep dive. We are looking

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at one of the most astonishing price crashes

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in human history. And we're not talking about

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real estate or tech gadgets like televisions

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or smartphones. We are talking about the cost

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of reading your own DNA. Which is just. wild

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to think about. It really is. Our source material

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today is a comprehensive Wikipedia article detailing

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the history of what is widely known as the $1

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,000 genome. A very famous benchmark in the science

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world. Right. And our mission for this deep dive,

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we want to track how we went from this multi

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-billion dollar scientific moonshot to a biological

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scan that you can basically buy on Black Friday.

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We really want to understand the technological

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mechanisms that actually made that possible.

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Okay, let's unpack this. Yeah, so to set the

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baseline here, the phrase the $1 ,000 genome,

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it's doing a lot of heavy lifting. It isn't just

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a literal price tag that someone pulled out of

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thin air. It's more of a symbol, right? Exactly.

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It represents the threshold for a whole new era

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of predictive and personalized medicine. The

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core idea is that once the price drops to roughly

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$1 ,000, having your DNA fully sequenced, put

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on a disc and hand it over to your doctor becomes

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a routine worthwhile medical expenditure. So

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it starts being this abstract ivory tower scientific

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triumph and actually becomes a standard tool

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in your doctor's toolkit, kind of like, you know,

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getting an MRI or ordering a comprehensive blood

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panel. Right. It becomes accessible. But to really

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appreciate how wild this discount is for you,

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the patient, we have to look back at the original

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astronomical sticker price that started this

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whole movement. Right. The benchmark. We have

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to start with the human genome project. Yeah.

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The Human Genome Project, or the HGP, was that

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initial global effort to sequence a single human

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genome. And it took an entire decade just to

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complete the first draft. Just the first draft.

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Just the draft. And the final estimated cost

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was around $2 .7 billion. Which is just a staggering

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amount of money. I always think of that first

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human genome project like building the very first

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skyscraper in a city. It's this colossal, completely

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unrepeatable proof of concept. That's a great

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analogy, actually. Thanks. I mean, you spend

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billions of dollars just to prove to the world

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that you can build a structure that touches the

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clouds. But once you've done it, you aren't going

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to spend $2 .7 billion every single time someone

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wants to run an apartment. You have to figure

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out how to make it cheaper. And the scientific

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community recognized that exact skyscraper problem

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immediately. In December 2001, which was right

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after that first draft of the HGP was published,

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researchers gathered at a scientific retreat

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in Virginia to figure out the future of biomedical

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research. what's next meeting. Exactly. And that

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is exactly where the catchphrase, the $1 ,000

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genome was first publicly recorded. They looked

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at that $2 .7 billion price tag and realized

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the massive chasm between what they had just

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achieved and what routine medical sequencing

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would actually require in the real world. I do

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have to wonder about that specific number, though.

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Why $1 ,000? I mean, it feels like a suspiciously

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round marketing number. It does sound a bit PR

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friendly. Right. If the goal was just to make

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it cheaper, why not 5 ,000 or 500? Why exactly

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one grand? What's fascinating here is how the

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scientific community framed that exact target.

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George M. Church, who is a very prominent geneticist,

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he actually wrote an article in Scientific American

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in 2006 laying out the psychology behind it.

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Oh, so it was a psychological target. Yeah, he

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argued that $1 ,000 was the specific financial

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and psychological threshold where an individual

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would view whole genome sequencing as a reasonable

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once -in -a -lifetime expenditure. Oh, I see.

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Because your fundamental genetic code doesn't

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change. you only really need to read the whole

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entire book once in your life. Right. If the

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procedure costs $10 ,000, most people simply

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cannot afford it out of pocket. And insurance

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companies, they certainly won't cover it without

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a highly specific pre -existing medical reason.

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Yeah. Good luck getting insurance to pay for

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a 10 grand elective test. Exactly. But at $1

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,000, it falls into the realm of an elective,

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justifiable expense for long -term health planning.

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So the race was on. Everybody wanted to be the

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one to hit the magic number. Yep. By 2002, Craig

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Venter, another major figure in genomics, was

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giving talks about advancing toward this $1 ,000

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goal. And in 2003, his foundation actually earmarked

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half a million dollars specifically for a breakthrough.

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And it wasn't just private foundations either,

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right? The source mentions that in 2004, the

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National Human Genome Research Institute started

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offering specific grant money. explicitly designed

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to force this technology into existence. Yeah,

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they were actively paying scientists to figure

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out how to sequence a human -sized genome for

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a grand or less. So the goal is set, the funding

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is there, and the entire scientific community

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is scrambling. And that brings us to 2007. and

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a major milestone. Right. This is where we shift

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from the theoretical to the practical. In May

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of 2007, Jonathan Rothberg, who was the founder

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of a company called 454 Life Sciences, held this

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ceremony at Baylor College of Medicine. And he

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handed James D. Watson, the Nobel Laureate, who

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helped discover the structure of DNA, a portable

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hard drive. And on that little hard drive was

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Watson's complete personal genome sequence. Handing

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some of the fundamental code of their existence

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just on a little rectangular piece of you plug

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into a USB port. That is a brilliant visual.

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It was a total watershed moment. This was the

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first personal genome produced using what we

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call next generation sequencing platforms. And

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Rothberg estimated the cost to sequence Watson's

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DNA at about one million dollars. Okay, a million

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dollars is obviously a massive drop from 2 .7

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billion, but it's still... luxury megayacht territory.

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Definitely out of reach for the average person.

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Right. But I want to pause on that phrase you

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used, next -generation sequencing, because going

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from billions to millions in just a few years

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doesn't happen by just working a little faster

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or having your lab techs drink more coffee. No,

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absolutely not. You have to fundamentally change

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the rules of the game. How do the machines actually

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change to force that huge price drop? Well, you

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completely abandoned the old method. During the

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original Human Genome Project, they largely used

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a technique called Sanger Sequencing. Think of

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Sanger sequencing as highly linear. Linear meaning

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straight line. Right. You are reading a massive

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encyclopedia, letter by letter, moving from page

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one to page two all the way to the very end.

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It is painstakingly slow. So it's like a medieval

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monk sitting in a candlelit room, copying a three

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billion letter manuscript by hand, one word at

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a time. That is exactly what it was like. So

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next generation platforms introduced the concept

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of massive parallelization. Parallelization.

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Instead of reading one long string of DNA Generally,

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these new machines chemically blast the DNA into

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millions of tiny microscopic fragments. Oh, wow.

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Just blowing it up. Yep. And then millions of

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microscopic sensors read all of those fragmented

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pieces simultaneously. So instead of one monk

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reading the book cover to cover, you're basically

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inventing the printing press. Or rather, wait,

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you're tearing the book into a million pieces,

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handing a piece to a million different people

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to read at the exact same time, and then using

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a massive computer algorithm to stitch the story

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back together based on overlapping sentences.

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That parallelization is the exact technological

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mechanism that triggered this massive price crash.

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It allowed machines to process massive amounts

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of biological data in a fraction of the time.

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Which is incredible. It is. But the Watson milestone

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revealed a completely different hidden catch

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that nobody was really talking about yet. Because

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just handing someone a hard drive full of data

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isn't actually medicine. Not at all. I mean,

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if someone hands me a billion page book written

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in a language I don't speak, it doesn't mean

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I actually know what the story is. I just have

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a really heavy book. A hard drive of raw genetic

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data is totally useless to you without the dictionary.

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to translate it. This raises an important question,

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and it's exactly what scientists began pointing

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out immediately. You have the cost of reading

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the genome, just getting the raw spelling of

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the A -T -C -G letters using those new parallel

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machines. Right, the raw data. But then you have

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the cost of actually understanding what those

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letters mean for a specific patient. Buskorff,

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who is the president of the American College

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of Medical Genetics, famously called this the

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$1 million interpretation. The $1 million interpretation.

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Wow, so the printing press is getting cheaper,

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but we still have to pay an entire team of scholars

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to read the text and tell us what it means. Exactly.

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Another prominent scientist, Elaine Martis from

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Washington University, preferred to call it the

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$100 ,000 analysis. But the point remains the

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same. It's expensive to understand. Distinguishing

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between raw data generation and actionable medical

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insight is crucial. You can drive the cost of

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the sequencing machines down, sure, but the human

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expertise, computing power, and clinical research

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required to look at your specific genetic spelling

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and say, oh, you have a variant on this specific

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chromosome that puts you at higher risk for this

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specific type of heart disease, That is a completely

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different bottleneck. It sounds like we were

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so obsessed with the cost of gathering the letters

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that we completely forgot someone actually has

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to write the medical summary. That is a very

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real problem the industry faced. But even with

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that interpretation bottleneck looming over the

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industry, the race to drop the cost of the raw

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sequencing just went into absolute overdrive.

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Oh, it exploded. Once Watson got his one million

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dollar hard drive in 2007, a fierce, almost chaotic

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corporate race broke out. And this is the part

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of the deep dive where a luxury million dollar

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item turns into an Amazon Prime Day deal in just

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over a decade. The speed of the commercial freefall

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is truly dizzying. At the end of 2007, a biotech

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company called Gnome debuted the first direct

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to consumer genome sequencing service. The initial

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price was three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

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OK, so we are down from a million, but, you know,

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three hundred fifty grand is still buying a very

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nice house territory. But look at the drop over

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just the next few years. By 2008, Illumina announced

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they had sequenced an individual genome for $100

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,000 in regent costs. Applied biosystems countered

00:11:13.940 --> 00:11:17.340
with $60 ,000 on their platform. It's just plunging.

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Yeah. And in 2009, Stanford University professor

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Stephen Quake published a paper showing he sequenced

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his own genome for a reported cost of $48 ,000

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in consumables. Wait. I want to clarify some

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terminology for the listener who maybe hasn't

00:11:29.980 --> 00:11:32.210
been in a chemistry lab recently. When we talk

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about reagent costs or consumables, we aren't

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talking about the price of the sequencing machine

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itself. We're just talking about the chemical

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ink and paper required to run the test, right?

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Yes. Think of a standard desktop printer. The

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printer itself might cost a hundred bucks at

00:11:45.659 --> 00:11:48.620
the store, but those proprietary ink cartridges

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you have to buy over and over again, that's where

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the real cost lies. They always get you on the

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ink. Always. Reagents and consumables are basically

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the biological ink cartridges. They are the specialized

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chemicals, the enzymes, the glass slides needed

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to prepare and read the DNA. The companies were

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bragging about how cheaply they could run a single

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test, assuming you already owned their multi

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-million dollar machine. But still, every single

00:12:13.320 --> 00:12:15.200
year, the price of that chemical ink just gets

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chopped in half. And the business model starts

00:12:17.299 --> 00:12:20.679
to shift toward the consumer, too. In 2010, Illumina

00:12:20.679 --> 00:12:23.360
introduces an individual genome sequencing service,

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though to be fair, you did need to present a

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doctor's note. The price for that was $50 ,000

00:12:28.740 --> 00:12:31.139
per person. A doctor's note and the price of

00:12:31.139 --> 00:12:34.240
a luxury sedan. It's cool, but still not quite

00:12:34.240 --> 00:12:38.039
our $1 ,000 target. Well, by 2012, Life Technologies

00:12:38.039 --> 00:12:40.919
unveils a new instrument called the Ion Proton

00:12:40.919 --> 00:12:43.679
Sequencer. They publicly promised it would achieve

00:12:43.679 --> 00:12:46.980
the $1 ,000 genome in a day within 12 months.

00:12:47.960 --> 00:12:50.179
A journalist covering the launch actually compared

00:12:50.179 --> 00:12:53.019
it to the cost of a dental crown. Here's where

00:12:53.019 --> 00:12:54.899
it gets really interesting, because the corporate

00:12:54.899 --> 00:12:58.240
PR machines are just working overtime now. Everyone

00:12:58.240 --> 00:13:00.659
desperately wants to be the one to plant the

00:13:00.659 --> 00:13:03.159
flag and claim they conquered the $1 ,000 genome.

00:13:03.379 --> 00:13:07.500
Huge bratting rights. Huge. and in 2014 it seemed

00:13:07.500 --> 00:13:10.679
like someone finally did. Illumina launched a

00:13:10.679 --> 00:13:14.720
machine called the HiSec X10 sequencer. and researchers

00:13:14.720 --> 00:13:17.299
lost their minds over it. One scientist in our

00:13:17.299 --> 00:13:19.480
source material even compared it to the invention

00:13:19.480 --> 00:13:21.679
of the telescope or the microprocessor. It was

00:13:21.679 --> 00:13:23.399
a very big deal in the scientific community.

00:13:23.559 --> 00:13:25.379
But I read the fine print, and I have to call

00:13:25.379 --> 00:13:27.639
it out. If I want a $1 ,000 genome from this

00:13:27.639 --> 00:13:30.360
machine, the catch is absolutely massive. To

00:13:30.360 --> 00:13:33.000
achieve that specific $1 ,000 per genome price

00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:35.059
point, you had to purchase the entire sequencing

00:13:35.059 --> 00:13:38.200
system up front. And that system cost $10 million.

00:13:38.559 --> 00:13:40.980
Yeah, a slight barrier to entry. If I have to

00:13:40.980 --> 00:13:44.580
pay $10 million to buy the machine, That is absolutely

00:13:44.580 --> 00:13:47.659
not a $1 ,000 genome. That is Hollywood accounting.

00:13:48.299 --> 00:13:50.399
That's like saying my morning toast only cost

00:13:50.399 --> 00:13:52.779
five cents to make, but conveniently ignoring

00:13:52.779 --> 00:13:55.460
the fact that I had to buy a $10 million toaster

00:13:55.460 --> 00:13:58.139
to make it. It's a fair point. Plus, the source

00:13:58.139 --> 00:14:00.960
notes that their $1 ,000 calculation completely

00:14:00.960 --> 00:14:04.820
ignored basic overhead costs, like the massive

00:14:04.820 --> 00:14:07.240
amount of electricity required to actually run

00:14:07.240 --> 00:14:09.500
the instrument. Yeah, it highlights the difference

00:14:09.500 --> 00:14:13.240
between economy of scale cost for a massive academic

00:14:13.240 --> 00:14:16.799
lab versus the actual retail cost to a single

00:14:16.799 --> 00:14:20.139
consumer. If you run a giant factory that sequences

00:14:20.139 --> 00:14:22.940
tens of thousands of genomes a year, your marginal

00:14:22.940 --> 00:14:25.320
cost per genome using that $10 million system

00:14:25.320 --> 00:14:28.000
really does drop to $1 ,000. Sure, spread out

00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:30.139
over time. But for the individual at home, you

00:14:30.139 --> 00:14:32.340
couldn't just write a check for $1 ,000 and get

00:14:32.340 --> 00:14:35.769
your genome in 2014. That economy of scale eventually

00:14:35.769 --> 00:14:38.070
trickled down though. The battleground shifted

00:14:38.070 --> 00:14:40.710
from academic bragging rights, you know, who

00:14:40.710 --> 00:14:42.830
has the most efficient multi -million dollar

00:14:42.830 --> 00:14:45.370
machine to direct to consumer retail price wars?

00:14:46.149 --> 00:14:48.669
Fast forward to 2018. A company called Dante

00:14:48.669 --> 00:14:51.769
Labs offers whole genome sequencing on Amazon

00:14:51.769 --> 00:14:54.730
Prime Day. You can buy your entire genetic blueprint

00:14:54.730 --> 00:14:57.470
alongside a discounted air fryer and a bulk pack

00:14:57.470 --> 00:15:02.320
of paper towels. And the price? $349. Incredible.

00:15:02.820 --> 00:15:05.080
And later that same year, around Black Friday,

00:15:05.399 --> 00:15:07.700
Dante Labs offered whole genome sequencing for

00:15:07.700 --> 00:15:11.039
under $200. Under $200. Another company, Veritas

00:15:11.039 --> 00:15:13.360
Genetics, which was actually founded by George

00:15:13.360 --> 00:15:16.019
Church, the exact same scientist who wrote about

00:15:16.019 --> 00:15:18.879
that $1 ,000 psychological threshold back in

00:15:18.879 --> 00:15:22.620
2006, they matched that $199 price tag for a

00:15:22.620 --> 00:15:26.379
limited run of 1 ,000 customers. $199. We started

00:15:26.379 --> 00:15:29.419
at $2 .7 billion in a decade of work. Now, it's

00:15:29.419 --> 00:15:31.860
a two -day Black Friday impulse buy that costs

00:15:31.860 --> 00:15:33.980
less than a decent pair of noise -canceling headphones.

00:15:34.179 --> 00:15:36.440
It really is unbelievable. And the source mentions

00:15:36.440 --> 00:15:38.259
that companies are now actively racing toward

00:15:38.259 --> 00:15:41.179
a $100 genome. I mean, this commercial race moved

00:15:41.179 --> 00:15:44.340
so unbelievably fast that it actually broke the

00:15:44.340 --> 00:15:46.279
traditional mechanisms we used to incentivize

00:15:46.279 --> 00:15:48.210
science in the first place. That is one of the

00:15:48.210 --> 00:15:50.309
most unique aspects of this entire timeline.

00:15:50.909 --> 00:15:52.830
Normally, when there is a massive scientific

00:15:52.830 --> 00:15:55.909
hurdle, organizations create structured prizes

00:15:55.909 --> 00:15:58.210
to motivate researchers. Right, to get them moving.

00:15:58.549 --> 00:16:01.850
Think of the Ansari X Prize, which offered millions

00:16:01.850 --> 00:16:05.100
to incentivize private spaceflight. Well, they

00:16:05.100 --> 00:16:07.120
tried to do the exact same thing for genetics.

00:16:07.440 --> 00:16:10.419
The Archon Genomics X Prize. Exactly. It was

00:16:10.419 --> 00:16:13.679
officially announced that in January 2013, there

00:16:13.679 --> 00:16:16.659
would be a $10 million grand prize competition.

00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:19.940
And the technological goal was incredibly intense.

00:16:20.240 --> 00:16:22.240
What were the rules? The winning team had to

00:16:22.240 --> 00:16:25.399
sequence 100 human genomes within 30 days. They

00:16:25.399 --> 00:16:28.360
needed incredible accuracy, just one error per

00:16:28.360 --> 00:16:30.700
one million bases. And they had to do it all

00:16:30.700 --> 00:16:33.620
at an audited total cost of $1 ,000 per gene.

00:16:33.580 --> 00:16:35.740
Let's break down that accuracy standard for a

00:16:35.740 --> 00:16:39.320
second. One error per 1 million bases. The human

00:16:39.320 --> 00:16:42.360
genome is roughly 3 .2 billion base pairs long.

00:16:42.779 --> 00:16:44.799
So they are demanding that you read a 3 billion

00:16:44.799 --> 00:16:47.320
letter book, and you are only allowed to make

00:16:47.320 --> 00:16:49.799
quite about 3 ,000 typos total. Roughly, yeah.

00:16:49.980 --> 00:16:52.440
That is an absurdly high standard of accuracy.

00:16:53.120 --> 00:16:54.679
But looking at the timeline of the commercial

00:16:54.679 --> 00:16:57.659
companies we just discussed, like Illumina. life

00:16:57.659 --> 00:17:00.799
technologies. They were already promising thousand

00:17:00.799 --> 00:17:03.779
-dollar genomes around this exact same time in

00:17:03.779 --> 00:17:08.339
2012 and 2013. I have to imagine this ex -prize

00:17:08.339 --> 00:17:10.920
created a massive clash between academic labs

00:17:10.920 --> 00:17:13.619
trying to win the prize and private tech companies

00:17:13.619 --> 00:17:15.559
already selling the service. It was actually

00:17:15.559 --> 00:17:17.940
much more definitive than a clash. The prize

00:17:17.940 --> 00:17:21.289
became completely obsolete. In August 2013, the

00:17:21.289 --> 00:17:23.890
founders abruptly canceled the entire $10 million

00:17:23.890 --> 00:17:26.710
competition. They canceled a $10 million global

00:17:26.710 --> 00:17:28.769
science competition. Just pulled the plug. Yep.

00:17:29.210 --> 00:17:31.009
The founders put out a public statement saying

00:17:31.009 --> 00:17:33.910
the prize had been outpaced by innovation. They

00:17:33.910 --> 00:17:35.930
realized that the private market was moving so

00:17:35.930 --> 00:17:38.109
fast and the corporate rivalries were so intense

00:17:38.109 --> 00:17:41.009
that their $10 million prize was no longer actually

00:17:41.009 --> 00:17:43.890
driving technological changes. Wow. The industry

00:17:43.890 --> 00:17:46.609
was already conquering the goal on its own. It's

00:17:46.609 --> 00:17:48.910
like setting up a multi -million dollar global

00:17:48.910 --> 00:17:52.130
prize to invent a better flip phone. And right

00:17:52.130 --> 00:17:54.670
before you award the money, you look up and realize

00:17:54.670 --> 00:17:56.849
everyone in the world is already walking around

00:17:56.849 --> 00:17:59.210
with touchscreen smartphones. Exactly. The prize

00:17:59.210 --> 00:18:01.890
was irrelevant before the starting gun even fired.

00:18:02.049 --> 00:18:04.710
If we connect this to the bigger picture, it

00:18:04.710 --> 00:18:07.109
is incredibly rare in scientific history for

00:18:07.109 --> 00:18:09.990
this to happen. Usually, technological goals

00:18:09.990 --> 00:18:13.369
drag on way past their initial deadlines. Decades

00:18:13.369 --> 00:18:15.549
can go by waiting for a breakthrough. Oh, yeah.

00:18:15.609 --> 00:18:18.930
Like fusion energy, always 20 years away. Right.

00:18:19.049 --> 00:18:21.609
But here, the free market, driven by the shift

00:18:21.609 --> 00:18:24.390
to next generation sequencing and intense corporate

00:18:24.390 --> 00:18:27.890
competition, utterly blew past a highly structured,

00:18:28.170 --> 00:18:30.769
well -funded scientific competition. So what

00:18:30.769 --> 00:18:32.910
does this all mean? We've tracked this incredible

00:18:32.910 --> 00:18:36.009
journey today. We started with a $2 .7 billion

00:18:36.009 --> 00:18:39.730
global effort that took 10 linear years of Sanger

00:18:39.730 --> 00:18:42.430
sequencing. The medieval monk method. Right.

00:18:42.789 --> 00:18:45.250
Then we move through the era of next -gen parallelization.

00:18:45.440 --> 00:18:47.480
handing a million dollar hard drive to James

00:18:47.480 --> 00:18:50.579
Watson. We saw the corporate posturing with 10

00:18:50.579 --> 00:18:52.759
million dollar machines claiming the thousand

00:18:52.759 --> 00:18:55.380
dollar benchmark. And finally, we arrived at

00:18:55.380 --> 00:18:58.400
the 199 dollar Black Friday sale. The price has

00:18:58.400 --> 00:19:01.160
officially crashed. It has. And what it means

00:19:01.160 --> 00:19:04.599
for you listening to this right now is that the

00:19:04.599 --> 00:19:07.839
era of predictive personalized medicine is no

00:19:07.839 --> 00:19:10.599
longer gated by massive personal wealth. The

00:19:10.599 --> 00:19:13.349
door is open. The ability to read your specific

00:19:13.349 --> 00:19:15.890
genetic code is basically solved as a financial

00:19:15.890 --> 00:19:18.589
obstacle. The new frontier, the new bottleneck,

00:19:18.670 --> 00:19:20.710
is exactly what Bruce Korff warned about years

00:19:20.710 --> 00:19:23.230
ago. It's the interpretation. A dictionary. Yes.

00:19:23.529 --> 00:19:25.930
Your access to the raw data is incredibly cheap,

00:19:26.029 --> 00:19:28.589
but the medical community's ability to seamlessly

00:19:28.589 --> 00:19:31.390
translate that massive biological data set into

00:19:31.390 --> 00:19:34.710
a clear, actionable health plan for your specific

00:19:34.710 --> 00:19:37.089
life, that is where the real work is happening

00:19:37.089 --> 00:19:39.700
now. The reading is cheap. The understanding

00:19:39.700 --> 00:19:41.819
is still catching up. It really does come back

00:19:41.819 --> 00:19:44.240
to that idea of the book in the discount bin.

00:19:45.059 --> 00:19:47.460
We've mass produced the book using the biological

00:19:47.460 --> 00:19:49.400
printing press. Now we just need to make sure

00:19:49.400 --> 00:19:51.400
every doctor has the dictionary to read it. And

00:19:51.400 --> 00:19:54.920
this raises one final very important consideration.

00:19:55.590 --> 00:19:59.049
If sequencing your DNA soon costs less than the

00:19:59.049 --> 00:20:01.890
price of a nice takeout dinner for two, it forces

00:20:01.890 --> 00:20:04.549
us to ask a question that wasn't heavily featured

00:20:04.549 --> 00:20:07.250
in the early scientific race, but is critical

00:20:07.250 --> 00:20:09.650
today. Oh, what's that? When you take advantage

00:20:09.650 --> 00:20:11.950
of that Black Friday sale and you upload your

00:20:11.950 --> 00:20:14.529
biological blueprint to a private company for

00:20:14.529 --> 00:20:17.490
a massive discount, who ultimately owns the rights

00:20:17.490 --> 00:20:20.430
to that highly personal data set. Oh, wow. Because

00:20:20.430 --> 00:20:23.089
if the data is that cheap to gather, the real

00:20:23.089 --> 00:20:25.400
economic value isn't in the sequencing anymore

00:20:25.400 --> 00:20:28.200
the real value is in possessing the code itself

00:20:28.200 --> 00:20:31.160
from a multi -billion dollar scientific triumph

00:20:31.160 --> 00:20:34.119
to a cheap retail commodity to the ultimate data

00:20:34.119 --> 00:20:37.359
ownership question the book is on sale but who

00:20:37.359 --> 00:20:40.119
gets to keep a copy of your story that is definitely

00:20:40.119 --> 00:20:42.480
something for you to chew on thank you so much

00:20:42.480 --> 00:20:44.579
for joining us on this deep dive into the thousand

00:20:44.579 --> 00:20:47.099
dollar genome keep asking questions and we will

00:20:47.099 --> 00:20:47.839
catch you next time