MAY 4, 2026 – I am having my genome read by Sequencing.Com. I will be your guinea pig as to how this goes:)
There are 3 billion (!!!) pairs of DNA to be read. They read them 30 times to make sure they get it exactly right. They will then run it through 15,000 (!!!) diseases. I don’t know if that will show diseases I currently have or will get down the road if I live long enough. I will keep you posted.
CRISPR came along about 25 years ago. They are able to snip out a single bad ‘letter’ and get rid of a disease or such. This method has a bit of downside as the DNA on both sides of what is snipped tries to heal itself before it is put back together.
So, two new methods have been invented. Basically, like an eraser. Erase the bad letter or letters and put in the good ones. Simply mind-boggling they can find the ‘bad’ letter out of 3 billion letters. I am curious as to what a letter looks like. My HSA paid for it so I went with the maximum product available.
As an aside, before I forget. Where this might be heading…..Eli Lilly is the largest pharma company involved in fixing DNA. People ask why a company that sells pills would want to permanently fix illnesses. Main reason is they make very little to no money on most of the pills they sell. They can charge $600,000 (you read that right) to permanently fix a disease (like heart disease!). Insurance companies will pay them this as it is cheaper than the millions of dollars they would pay for a patient who has heart disease over many years. Lilly lets them pay $60k a year for 10 years with a guaranty that the patient won’t have another heart attack and this or that reading won’t go above a certain number, etc. A win-win for both companies.
Is it a win for the patient? If you were near 100% sure you wouldn’t have any more heart problems, what price would you put on that? They already are able to stop dementia from worsening. They can’t reverse the damage. But, they can 100% stop more damage. That is HUGE!!!!!! For real estate appraisers, think how negative this is for Memory Care Facilities! Their demand will decline significantly going forward.
As I said last year, 2025 will go down as the most important year in the history of the world since writing and language were invented. By 2030, what we have today will look trivial. Change is occurring literally by the hour.
It took CRISPR 13 years and I think billions of dollars to sequence the first genome. It is now done in 24 hours for $300. I imagine in the not-too-distant future it will be provided for free.
I will be back with my genome results within a week or two I think.
Shalom,
George