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sequencing-costs
Schema
| name | type | format | description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Date | date | any | Date of measurement (YYYY-MM) |
| Cost per Mb | number | Cost in USD to sequence one megabase (one million bases) of DNA at a specified quality | |
| Cost per Genome | number | Cost in USD to sequence a complete human-sized genome (~3.2 billion base pairs) |
Data Files
| File | Description | Size | Last modified | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|
sequencing-costs | 1.97 kB | about 14 hours ago | sequencing-costs |
| Files | Size | Format | Created | Updated | License | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1.97 kB | csv | 1 day ago | Open Data Commons Public Domain Dedication and License v1.0 | DNA Sequencing Costs: Data |
The cost of reading the human genome is one of the most dramatic technology cost curves ever recorded. In September 2001 — shortly after the completion of the Human Genome Project — sequencing a single human genome cost roughly USD 95 million. By 2022 it cost around USD 500.
That is a 190,000-fold reduction in two decades.
For comparison, Moore's Law (the doubling of transistors per chip every two years) predicts roughly a 100-fold reduction over the same period. Genome sequencing costs fell roughly 2,000 times faster than the Moore's Law baseline between 2008 and 2012.
The 2008 inflection
The steepest drop in the dataset occurs in 2008: cost per genome fell from around USD 3 million in January to around USD 750,000 by October — a 75% decline in a single year. This coincides with the commercial release of next-generation sequencing (NGS) instruments, which replaced Sanger sequencing and enabled massively parallel reading of DNA.
Data
Sourced from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), which has tracked sequencing costs at its funded centers since 2001. The dataset covers September 2001 through May 2022 at roughly quarterly intervals.
Two metrics are tracked:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
Cost per Mb | USD cost to sequence one megabase (1 million bases) at specified quality |
Cost per Genome | USD cost to sequence a complete human genome (approximately 3.2 billion base pairs) |
Citation
Wetterstrand KA. DNA Sequencing Costs: Data from the NHGRI Genome Sequencing Program (GSP). Available at: www.genome.gov/sequencingcostsdata.
License
Public Domain (ODC-PDDL-1.0). No restrictions on use.