By Alex Wayne - Mon Mar 26 17:17:10 GMT 2012

Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Greg Lucier, chief executive officer of Life Technologies Corp., talks about the company's DNA sequencer and the results of his own genome sequencing done last year. Lucier spoke with Bloomberg's John Lauerman on Oct. 4, 2011. (Source: Bloomberg)

Obtaining a complete transcript of a persons DNA is getting faster and cheaper, raising ethical and privacy questions that the government must examine, a U.S. presidential commission said.

The panel said today it wants public input on developments in human genome sequencing, including how to balance individual privacy against societal benefits. The Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, an advisory panel set up in 2009, plans to send President Barack Obama a report by the end of the year.

Translating an entire human genome required more than a decade of research and billions of dollars by the governments Human Genome Project, which completed the first sequence in 2003. Now, Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd. plans to sell a genome sequencer the size of a USB memory stick for $900 by the end of this year and companies including Life Technologies Corp. (LIFE) and Illumina Inc. (ILMN) promise genomes sequenced in a day.

Relatively inexpensive, rapid sequencing of whole human genomes appears not only likely, but imminent, the commission said in a regulatory filing. This prospect raises many questions for the scientific, medical, ethics and patient communities related to how this information can and ought to be collected, used and regulated.

Public comments are due by May 25, and the panel plans to spend six months on its research.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Wayne in Washington at awayne3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net

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DNA Mapped in a Day Prompts U.S. Review of Genome Ethics