Chasing the sequencing dollar

Despite the technical similarities of PE Biosystems' ABI Prism 3700 DNA Analyzer and Nycomed Amersham plc's MegaBACE 1000 automated DNA sequencing machines, and despite the price advantage of MegaBACE, consumers seem to be anointing PEB with their checkbooks.

Both machines use a 96 capillary format to achieve sequencing of about 500,000 bases per day (roughly 760 samples per day with a read length of 700 bases per sample). ...