$10 million prize aims to inspire gene race

I really enjoyed the X prize space flight competition...hopefullt this one will be just as good...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The foundation that inspired a private sector race to space announced a new $10 million prize on Wednesday -- this time to inspire a race to sequence the human genetic map faster and cheaper.

Although scientists have mapped one person's genome -- by both public and private efforts -- it was time-consuming and expensive.

The X-Prize Foundation wants to inspire someone to map 100 different human genomes in just 10 days.

And just to spice things up, it is offering another $1 million if the team can decode the genomes of 100 more people, including some wealthy donors and celebrities such as Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Google co-founder Larry Page.

The effort could speed the era of personal genomics -- in which each person's propensity to disease, response to drugs, and other tendencies are individually mapped, said Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute.

link to full article

x prize foundation