The gene (machine) and we

Over at IEEE Spectrum Eliza Strickland has a long piece, The Gene Machine and Me, which reports on her experience with exome sequencing (this refers to the ~1 percent of the genome, or 30 billion base pairs, which is coding). Being IEEE Spectrum there is much focus on genomic technology, but I suspect this will have as much interest 10-20 years down the line as varieties of combustion engine circa 1900 are to us. In other words, it will be standard technology which we use, not a novel technique which is of interest to non-specialists. Rather, it's the biology and medicine which are of more lasting relevance. As is usually the case the promoters of these technologies tend to overestimate the obvious short term impact of their field of advancement. For example, here is this quote: “I do believe that genome sequencing will have as profound an effect on medicine ...