For more than three decades the leading method for DNA sequencing was that described by Sanger in 1977 (52) based on oligonucleotide primed DNA synthesis and dideoxy termination and it was the method used for sequencing the human genome. Sanger sequencing remains the tool of choice in the modern laboratory for small scale DNA sequencing, however new technologies that evolved over the last few years, collectively termed next generation sequencing, have taken over in the field of high throughput sequencing (53). These new technologies, that include platforms like Roche 454 (Roche, CT, USA) Genome Analyzer (Illumina/Solexa, CA, USA), SOLiD™ (Applied Biosystems, CA, USA), Heliscope™ (Helicos Biosciences, MA, USA) and SMRT (Pacific Biosciences, CA, USA), each have specific advantages and one common feature that clearly set them apart from Sanger sequencing; they are highly parallel generating 500 Mb to 40 Gb of sequence in every run. These new technologies have allowed the price of sequencing a genome to drop by many orders of magnitude (an estimate for the human genome today is under $100,000) and have made possible research projects that
