Gordon Moore's 1965 article in Electronics Magazine described how integrated circuits were becoming smaller and more powerful.
This observation, known as Moore's Law, became a benchmark for technological progress.
The National Human Genome Research Institute tracked the cost of sequencing a human genome from 2001 to 2022.
Their data showed that genome sequencing costs fell much faster than predicted by Moore's Law.
This comparison highlights the rapid advancements in genomic technology.
Reasons
- Moore's Law provided a historical context for evaluating technological progress.
- It offered a quantifiable metric for comparing different fields' rates of innovation.
- The law served as a widely recognized standard for exponential growth in computing.
- It allowed researchers to benchmark the pace of cost reduction in new technologies.
- The law helped illustrate the dramatic improvements seen in various scientific areas.
Framing Moore's Law as a 'baseline benchmark' for genome sequencing costs feels like we're overcommitting to a comparison because it's familiar.
If we looked at this fresh, would we really say the observation about chips caused or even directly guided the genomics progress?
Genomic advancements came from biological engineering breakthroughs, not from Gordon Moore's paper; that was just a convenient narrative to show how fast things were moving.
We should walk away from the idea it was a direct driver; it was an analogy, not a blueprint.
Think about it: if gene sequencing hit a technical brick wall, Moore's Law wouldn't suddenly make it cheaper or tell scientists how to fix it.