WSJ.com (subscription) has a bit on the X Prize Foundation’s latest contest involves a $10 million bounty to the first team that can read the genomes of 100 people in 10 days. Not so much ground breakage here as compared to the rocket prize, if only because there is already a considerable industry out there for gene sequencing following the Human Genome Project. Of course, the HGP — inspired by similar competition from Craig Ventner’s Celera — finished sooner than anticipated because of the number of technological leaps made during the project,
Mr. Diamandis says the second batch of 100 volunteers, known as the “Genome 100,” will be chosen and announced over time and will include ordinary people as well as celebrities. He says several disease-oriented groups, including the March of Dimes, will be permitted to nominate people with specific diseases to have their DNA deciphered in hopes of discovering the genetic roots of those illnesses. As for the group including Messrs. Page, Allen and Milken, Mr. Diamandis says his aim is to make DNA “relevant to people” and one way is “to find celebrities and leaders of industry willing to do this.”
Normally, I’d question whether such competition is good for science. That is, here’s a time-consuming, stringent disciplined approach to getting things accomplished, wouldn’t competition create room for error and an impetus toward dishonesty? In this case, I’d say no. It’s obviously worked before. NASA is already looking into the prize model. DARPA prolly could benefit from that approach, I wonder if NIH and NSF could too. Sure, it would have to be goal-oriented and depend on the project, but it is an interesting concept.