Milestones in Genomic Sequencing

Nature | February 9, 2021

Twenty years ago, the Human Genome Project published its first draft sequence of the entire human genome. A sizeable collection of papers, their published research filled much of the 15 February 2001 issue of Nature, and represented the culmination of some 15 years of work. But it was only the beginning.

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Browsing the genome

Alan Packer | Nature | October 15, 2007

The large amount of genomic data generated by sequencing required new approaches for storing, visualizing and integrating sequence data and its annotations. Genome browsers such as Ensembl and the UCSC Genome Browser emerged to offer a new way of accessing and searching the genomes of multiple species.

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Browsing bar
Picture credit: banphote kamolsanei / Alamy Stock Photo

 

Waking the dead: sequencing archaic hominin genomes

Rebecca Furlong | Nature | February 10, 2021

The publication of the first draft genome of a Neanderthal in 2010 marked a turning point for the palaeogenomics field, making it possible to assemble an ancient genome from next-generation sequencing reads by overcoming previous limitations in ancient DNA research such as limited starting material, contamination and degradation.

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Skull
Photo credit: The Natural History Museum / Alamy Stock Photo

 

Watch Beth Shapiro, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), Associate Director of the UCSC Genomics Institute and Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Center, discuss the impact of genomic sequencing on the field of ancient DNA research.

 

 

Neanderthal genome yields insights into human evolution and evidence of interbreeding

Tim Stephens | UCSC | May 6, 2010

After extracting ancient DNA from the 40,000-year-old bones of Neanderthals, scientists have obtained a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome, yielding important new insights into the evolution of modern humans.

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Richard E. (Ed) Green holding a skull and other bones
Richard E. (Ed) Green. Photo credit: Jim MacKenzie

 

Filling in the gaps telomere to telomere

Katharine Wrighton | Nature | February 10, 2021

2020 saw the publication of the first gapless, telomere-to-telomere assembly of a human chromosome, the X chromosome. This discovery brought together sequencing technologies and computational tools that had been developed in the preceding decade. 

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Finger pushing a block
Photo credit: PORNCHAI SODA / Alamy Stock Photo

 

Scientists achieve first complete assembly of human X chromosome

Tim Stephens | UCSC | July 14, 2020

The first end-to-end (‘telomere-to-telomere’) completely gapless DNA sequence of a human chromosome is a major milestone for genomics research.

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Image of chromosome
Photo credit: Getty Images

 

Last modified: Aug 22, 2024