One of the issues I've discussed repeatedly is how resources--money--need to be shifted from data generation to data processing and analysis. This report about the Earth Microbiome Project, which will characterize 10,000 environmental (e.g., soil, water) samples is encouraging. Someone must have learned something from the last few years of microbiome work:
The sequencing aspect of the project is estimated to only account for about 10 percent of the total cost, with analysis and computation making up the bulk of the expense, said Meyer.
More like this please.
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More like this
Whenever a new discipline, especially one using a 'sexy' technology, is brought to bear on human disease, it seems to be oversold in what it will actually accomplish.
I realize that the typical format for blogging is to find something that pisses you off and then rant about it, but I actually like the recent workshop report by NHGRI, "The Future of DNA Sequencing at the National Human Genome Research Institute." (
Since I'm attending a human microbiome meeting today, I'll repost this question about the utility of metagenomics:
John Hawks highlights a new article in today's Science, Metagenomic Analysis of the Human Distal Gut Microbiome