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Cost of sequencing a full human genome

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Technological Change

About this data

Cost of sequencing a full human genome
The cost of sequencing the full genetic information of a human, measured in US$. This data is not adjusted for inflation.
Source
National Human Genome Research Institute (2022) – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
November 28, 2023
Next expected update
May 2026
Date range
2001–2022
Unit
current US$

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

National Human Genome Research Institute – DNA Sequencing Costs

The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) tracks the costs associated with DNA sequencing at the centers it funds. The cost-accounting data is summarized relative to two metrics: (1) "Cost per Megabase of DNA Sequence" - the cost of determining one megabase (Mb; a million bases) of DNA sequence of a specified quality; (2) "Cost per Genome" - the cost of sequencing a human-sized genome.

Retrieved on
November 28, 2023
Retrieved from
https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/DNA-Sequencing-Costs-Data
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Wetterstrand KA. DNA Sequencing Costs: Data from the NHGRI Genome Sequencing Program (GSP) Available at: www.genome.gov/sequencingcostsdata.

The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) tracks the costs associated with DNA sequencing at the centers it funds. The cost-accounting data is summarized relative to two metrics: (1) "Cost per Megabase of DNA Sequence" - the cost of determining one megabase (Mb; a million bases) of DNA sequence of a specified quality; (2) "Cost per Genome" - the cost of sequencing a human-sized genome.

Retrieved on
November 28, 2023
Retrieved from
https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/DNA-Sequencing-Costs-Data
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Wetterstrand KA. DNA Sequencing Costs: Data from the NHGRI Genome Sequencing Program (GSP) Available at: www.genome.gov/sequencingcostsdata.

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  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Cost of sequencing a full human genome”, part of the following publication: Max Roser, Hannah Ritchie, and Edouard Mathieu (2023) - “Technological Change”. Data adapted from National Human Genome Research Institute. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260304-094028/grapher/cost-of-sequencing-a-full-human-genome.html [online resource] (archived on March 4, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

National Human Genome Research Institute (2022) – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

National Human Genome Research Institute (2022) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Cost of sequencing a full human genome” [dataset]. National Human Genome Research Institute, “DNA Sequencing Costs” [original data]. Retrieved April 1, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260304-094028/grapher/cost-of-sequencing-a-full-human-genome.html (archived on March 4, 2026).

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Data API

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Data URL (CSV format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cost-of-sequencing-a-full-human-genome.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false
Metadata URL (JSON format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cost-of-sequencing-a-full-human-genome.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false

Code examples

Examples of how to load this data into different data analysis tools.

Excel / Google Sheets
=IMPORTDATA("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cost-of-sequencing-a-full-human-genome.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Python with Pandas
import pandas as pd
import requests

# Fetch the data.
df = pd.read_csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cost-of-sequencing-a-full-human-genome.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", storage_options = {'User-Agent': 'Our World In Data data fetch/1.0'})

# Fetch the metadata
metadata = requests.get("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cost-of-sequencing-a-full-human-genome.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false").json()
R
library(jsonlite)

# Fetch the data
df <- read.csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cost-of-sequencing-a-full-human-genome.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")

# Fetch the metadata
metadata <- fromJSON("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cost-of-sequencing-a-full-human-genome.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Stata
import delimited "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cost-of-sequencing-a-full-human-genome.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", encoding("utf-8") clear