When the first draft sequence of the human genome was announced, I was a research assistant for a lab that was part of the Genome Center of Wisconsin where I created shotgun libraries of bacterial genomes for sequencing. Of course, the local news organizations were all abuzz with the news and sought opinions on what this meant for the future, including that of the lab’s PI and oddly enough, my own. While I do not recall the exact words I offered on camera, I believe they were something along the lines of this is only the first step toward the future of human genetics. Ten years later, we have not fulfilled the potential of the grandiose words used to report the first draft sequence but have gained enough knowledge of what our genome holds to only intrigue scientists even more.

Continue reading “The Ongoing Legacy of the Human Genome Sequence”