NHGRI funds development of third generation DNA sequencing technologies

More than $18 million in grants to spur the development of a third generation of DNA sequencing technologies was announced today by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). The new technologies will sequence a person's DNA quickly and cost-effectively so it routinely can be used by biomedical researchers and health care workers to improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of human disease.
"NHGRI and its grantees have made significant progress toward the goal of developing DNA sequencing technologies to sequence a human genome for $1,000 or less," said Eric D. Green, M.D, Ph.D., director of NHGRI, one of the National Institutes of Health. "However, we must continue to support and encourage innovative approaches that hold the most promise for advancing our knowledge of human health and disease." 

$1,000 Genome Grants
NHGRI's Revolutionary Genome Sequencing Technologies grants have as their goal the development of breakthrough technologies that will enable a human-sized genome to be sequenced for $1,000 or less. Grant recipients and their approximate funding are:
Adam Abate, Ph.D., GnuBIO Inc., New Haven, Conn.
$240,000 (1 year)
Microfluidic DNA Sequencing
Jeremy S. Edwards, Ph.D., University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Albuquerque
$2.7 million (3 years)
Polony Sequencing and the $1000 Genome
Javier A. Farinas, Ph.D., Caerus Molecular Diagnostics Inc., Los Altos, Calif.
$500,000 (2 years)
Millikan Sequencing by Label-Free Detection of Nucleotide Incorporation
M. Reza Ghadiri, Ph.D., Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, Calif.
$5.1 million (4 years)
Single-Molecule DNA Sequencing with Engineered Nanopores
Steven J. Gordon, Ph.D., Intelligent Bio-Systems Inc., Waltham, Mass.
$2.6 million (2 years)
Ordered Arrays for Advanced Sequencing Systems
Xiaohua Huang, Ph.D., University of California San Diego
$800,000 (2 years)
Direct Real-Time Single Molecule DNA Sequencing
Stuart Lindsay, Ph.D., Arizona State University, Tempe
$860,000 (3 years)
Tunnel Junction for Reading All Four DNA Bases with High Discrimination
Amit Meller, Ph.D., Boston University
$4.1 million (4 years)
Single Molecule Sequencing by Nanopore-Induced Photon Emission
Murugappan Muthukumar, Ph.D., University of Massachusetts, Amherst
$800,000 (3 years)
Modeling Macromolecular Transport for Sequencing Technologies
Dean Toste, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
$430,000 (2 years)
Base-Selective Heavy Atom Labels for Electron Microscopy-Based DNA Sequencing
To read the grant abstracts and for more details about the NHGRI genome technology program, go to: http://www.genome.gov/10000368.