TED Health Interview: The future of gene sequencing with Dr. Eric Green
Mar 10, 2026
Dr. Eric Green, genomic researcher and former NHGRI director now at Illumina, shares a fast tour of modern sequencing. He contrasts genomics with genetics. He highlights impacts on prenatal care, cancer treatment, rapid neonatal diagnosis, and pharmacogenomics. He traces why sequencing got so cheap and urges the public to learn genomic basics.
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Noninvasive Prenatal Screening Replaced Amniocentesis
- Prenatal screening moved from risky amniocentesis to a simple maternal blood draw using fetal cell-free DNA.
- Eric Green recalls his wife's amniocenteses decades ago and contrasts that with current noninvasive sequencing tests for trisomy 21.
Tumor Sequencing Rewrote Cancer Treatment
- Cancer is fundamentally a disease of the genome, and tumor DNA sequencing now guides subtype classification and therapy choice.
- Eric Green says oncologists sequence tumors to catalog DNA differences that dictate the best treatments.
How The Human Genome Project Became Reality
- The Human Genome Project began as a moonshot to read 3 billion DNA letters and took 13 years, finishing in 2003.
- Eric Green recounts starting in 1990 with limited tools, international collaboration, and the 2003 milestone sequence.