single molecule sequencing

It is ironic and an underappreciated fact that the revolution in genome research started to happen only after "the" human genome was sequenced. While the sequencing of the generic human genome relied on the classic (but, on the genome scale astronomically expensive) Sanger method, new methods developed after 2000 have led to a rapid increase in productivity and drop in costs. Now the third generation is upon us, promising genome sequences from a single copy of the DNA, and even further price drops.

I wrote a feature about these developments for Education in Chemistry, which appears in the September issue, p 144-147 (Single molecule sequencing). Now online on the EiC website (free access).