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The expanding scope of DNA sequencing.
Jay Shendure1, Erez Lieberman Aiden
1Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA. erez@erez.com
Nature Biotechnology
|November 10, 2012
Summary
Next-generation DNA sequencing has rapidly advanced, becoming faster and cheaper for widespread research and clinical use. Many high-impact applications are still emerging, highlighting the technology
Area of Science:
- Genomics
- Molecular Biology
- Biotechnology
Background:
- Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies have dramatically improved in speed and cost-effectiveness over seven years.
- Millions of sequencing reads are now routinely generated for various biological investigations.
- NGS is applied in both fundamental research (genome assembly, disease genetics) and clinical settings (reproductive medicine, oncology, infectious diseases).
Purpose of the Study:
- To review the current state and impact of next-generation DNA sequencing.
- To highlight the innovative recombination of experimental methods in sequencing applications.
- To identify underexplored, high-impact applications of NGS.
Main Methods:
- Review of advancements in DNA sequencing technologies.
- Analysis of current research and clinical applications of sequencing data.
- Identification of trends in the development of new sequencing applications.
Main Results:
- Significant cost reduction and speed increase (four orders of magnitude) in DNA sequencing.
- Routine application of large-scale sequencing experiments in research and clinical practice.
- Successful integration of sequencing data in diverse fields from basic biology to medicine.
Conclusions:
- Next-generation sequencing is a transformative technology with broad applications.
- The creative combination of existing methods drives innovation in sequencing.
- Numerous high-impact applications of NGS remain to be fully realized.
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