from the Approved-by-Mr.-Green-Jeans^W-Genes dept.
Plant scientists plan massive effort to sequence 10,000 genomes
Hopes of sequencing the DNA of every living thing on Earth are taking a step forward with the announcement of plans to sequence at least 10,000 genomes representing every major clade of plants and eukaryotic microbes. Chinese sequencing giant BGI and the China National GeneBank (CNGB) held a workshop yesterday on the sidelines of the International Botanical Congress, being held this week in BGI's hometown of Shenzhen, to discuss what they are calling the 10KP plan. About 250 plant scientists participated in the discussions and "are raring to go," says Gane Ka-Shu Wong, a genomicist and bioinformaticist at University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.
The 10KP plan will be a key part of the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP), an ambitious and still evolving scheme to get at least rough sequence data on the 1.5 million eukaryotic species, starting with detailed sequences of one member of each of the 9000 eukaryotic families. The effort to sequence plants is moving ahead a bit faster than other aspects of EBP "because plant scientists are more collaborative," Wong says jokingly.
The 10KP plan is also building on a previous 1000 plant (1KP) transcriptome project. That effort, launched in 2012 and now nearing completion, was also led by BGI, where Wong is an associate director.
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A project to sequence the genomes of all complex/eukaryotic species on Earth is moving forward:
The central goal of the Earth BioGenome Project is to understand the evolution and organization of life on our planet by sequencing and functionally annotating the genomes of 1.5 million known species of eukaryotes, a massive group that includes plants, animals, fungi and other organisms whose cells have a nucleus that houses their chromosomal DNA. To date, the genomes of less than 0.2 percent of eukaryotic species have been sequenced.
The project also seeks to reveal some of the estimated 10 million to 15 million unknown species of eukaryotes, most of which are single cell organisms, insects and small animals in the oceans. The genomic data will be a freely available resource for scientific discovery and the resulting benefits shared with countries and indigenous communities where biodiversity is sourced. Researchers estimate the proposed initiative will take 10 years and cost approximately $4.7 billion.
In a perspective paper [DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1720115115] [DX] published today (April 23) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 24 interdisciplinary experts comprising the Earth BioGenome Project Working Group, provide a compelling rationale for why the project should go forward and outline a roadmap for how it can be achieved.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @03:23PM (3 children)
... would be more useful if they also did some analysis on the data afterwards.
Disclaimer, I'm a plant biologist that had them over at our institute a few years ago. The most talking (bragging) was about how much they sequenced a day, little about the data being processed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @04:01PM
It is your job. If they do everything, nothing will be left for you.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday July 28 2017, @04:53PM (1 child)
Did your institute make the sequences publicly available, or were they looking for things to patent?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @06:46PM
We didn't do the sequencing, they only visited us and gave a presentation... which was about the sequencing itself... not the data.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @04:05PM
s/Chinese Corporations/Scientists/
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @04:54PM
They just stop whenever they can't do it anymore and say "it was sequenced as well as we could". Then sell that as "sequencing complete/finished", which is technically true I guess, but highly misleading.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @06:47PM
is all of this data (all of it) going to be publicly available for free?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @07:37PM
I mean, these are obviously "inventions" that deserve to be protected!
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Friday July 28 2017, @07:39PM
Sperm counts in our white men are falling like a stone. Hebrew University scientists and the head of the Halal Certification Authority agree: the white race will be extinct in 40 years. Very important to save the sperm!