Sequencers are data collection peripherals. P.E. Biosystems has more similarities with a manufacturer of milling machines, electron microscopes, or wave soldering equipment than to cisco or microsoft. Although P.E. Biosystems occupies an interesting and important niche in the market, it is just that.
The interesting and revolutionary work is done elsewhere, and the real industrial powerhoses will probably be the firms which manage and interpret the data that is collected.
You're exactly right. The amount of work left to do makes the human genome project look like a brainstorming session between some generals at the beginning of a war. All the really interesting things are yet to come.
Running a simulation of the effects of a single point mutation over the period of your lifetime is a problem that makes the human genome project look tiny in comparison. Today we can't even successfully model how a single protein folds, and the problem of modeling even a single cell for a few hours dwarfs the 'Protein Folding Problem' by tens of orders of magnitude. Any 'human simulation' scheme is going to have computational requirements that make the combined computational resources of todays internet look miniscule. (Desktop sequencers will make intel and cisco rich beyond even their wildest dreams.) As for a defense mechanism, your body already has "ICE" against other things modifying your genetic code. It's called "The Immune System."
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Sequencers are data collection peripherals. P.E. Biosystems has more similarities with a manufacturer of milling machines, electron microscopes, or wave soldering equipment than to cisco or microsoft. Although P.E. Biosystems occupies an interesting and important niche in the market, it is just that.
The interesting and revolutionary work is done elsewhere, and the real industrial powerhoses will probably be the firms which manage and interpret the data that is collected.
You're exactly right. The amount of work left to do makes the human genome project look like a brainstorming session between some generals at the beginning of a war. All the really interesting things are yet to come.
Running a simulation of the effects of a single point mutation over the period of your lifetime is a problem that makes the human genome project look tiny in comparison. Today we can't even successfully model how a single protein folds, and the problem of modeling even a single cell for a few hours dwarfs the 'Protein Folding Problem' by tens of orders of magnitude. Any 'human simulation' scheme is going to have computational requirements that make the combined computational resources of todays internet look miniscule. (Desktop sequencers will make intel and cisco rich beyond even their wildest dreams.) As for a defense mechanism, your body already has "ICE" against other things modifying your genetic code. It's called "The Immune System."