When the cost of sequencing a human genome gets down to the price of a family car, then the era of personalised genomics will truly be upon us. This was the prediction from James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, in an interview with New Scientist (20 October 2007, p 58) last year.

Well, it’s getting close. Last week, Applied Biosystems of Foster City, California, announced that it had sequenced the genome of a Nigerian man at a cost of less than $60,000, excluding labour.

This is a race that is only going to get more intense over the next few years, bringing us real benefits I hope…

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