In November 2002, a deadly respiratory infection first appeared in the Guandong Province of China. In the ensuing months, unprecedented international health efforts moved toward isolating and identifying the source of SARS. From late March to early April 2003, research groups from various parts of the world closed in on the cause, a member of the coronavirus family.1 Almost immediately following, the 30 kb genome sequence of the SARS-associated coronavirus was published by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta,2 and a consortium of Canadian agencies including the British Columbia Cancer Agency (BCCA) Genome Sciences Center in Vancouver.3
The speed of the accomplishment is credited to massive efforts at mobilization and collaboration spearheaded by the World Health Organization. "Laboratories that could be considered under normal circumstances as competitors were brought together and worked together in an exemplary way ... and that made it so that ...
