Gustav Klimt’s “The Tree of Life,” 1909WIKIMEDIA
Scientists working to sequence all manner of bacteria, Archaea, plants, and animals and to make these genomes publicly available hope to use the data to inform health, industrial, and environmental issues. Large-scale sequencing consortia have been churning out data at an impressive rate, yet significant gaps remain in the genomic tree of life. And while these groups have largely been working independent of one another, together they might address more far-reaching questions, such as how life has evolved, how it currently functions, and how it might look down the line.
“We are still in the developmental stage, where every consortium focuses on a specific domain and is building up their own data and making sure it’s in good enough shape,” said Igor Grigoriev, head of ...
