Washington, Dec 17 : Your very own 'Book of Life', some 30,000 genes that make up your genome, could hold vital secrets to perfect health and your well being.

Advances in DNA-sequencing technology are bringing closer the day when it will be more economical for consumers to get an answer to that question, and others, by ordering up the deciphering of their entire genetic endowment - their "personal genome".

The first human genome sequence cost more than $2 billion and took about a decade to complete, notes Celia Henry Arnaud, senior editor, Chemical & Engineering News, (C&EN) which features the report as a cover story.

Technological advances now have cut the time to as little as one week, and some companies are charging individuals $48,000 for the service, a cost that experts expect to drop sharply in the coming years, the article notes.

"In the future, sequencing will be so cheap and so easy to access that everybody could get sequenced if they want. It'll be iPod pricing," says the CEO of a company that specialises in direct-to-consumer genome sequencing.

With their 'Book of Life' in hand, consumers and their physicians could map out strategies for the prevention, early diagnosis, and more effective treatment of diseases ranging from cancer to rare-genetic disorders.

But the technology also raises important ethical and legal issues, including the possibility of discrimination on the basis of genetic information in employment and insurance coverage, says a release of the American Chemical Society (ACS), which publishes the C&EN. (IANS)