Abstract

The sequencing of the human genome at the dawn of the twenty-first century marked the beginning of an ongoing race to make genome sequencing affordable enough to be incorporated into routine patient care. Genome sequencing is still prohibitively expensive, and while the next generation of sequencing techniques will no doubt have a substantial impact on genome sequencing, they have not been shown to be capable of achieving the aggressive goal established by the National Institutes of Health of a US$1000-genome by the year 2014. To achieve this goal, researchers will likely need to develop radically new approaches to DNA sequencing. Some of the most promising future-generation techniques attempt to sequence DNA using electronic mechanisms. This article describes the current state of approaches to sequence DNA using electronic techniques. It outlines existing techniques that have been used to sequence the human genome, nextgeneration techniques expected to substantially reduce the time and cost required to perform genome sequencing, and future electronic approaches.