"If the mouse and human genomes were so similar, we would be mice, " says Shoemaker.
From this humble beginning it now plans to sequence 200 full human genomes as part of an international collaboration called the 1, 000-genome project.
ECONOMIST: The next advances in genomics may happen in China
Complete Genomics, the second-biggest gainer, specializes in sequencing human genomes.
ECONOMIST: The next advances in genomics may happen in China
They aligned sections of the human and chimpanzee genomes and identified how much they diverged.
The software both Celera and the HGP ran on their supercomputers relied on new genes being similar either to known human genes or to genes found in animal genomes (like those of the mouse), Velculescu says.
Its biologists called up two Incyte databases -- LifeSeq, with 3 million human gene fragments containing 850 million DNA xunits, and PathoSeq, with 30 bacterial genomes containing 75 million units.
Now, 15 years after that first sequencing breakthrough, the field is finally on the cusp of making a real impact, as the cost of sequencing human DNA has gone so low that scientists are likely to sequence hundreds or thousands of genomes over the next couple years.
By comparing genomes across thousands of people, researchers identified genetic variations at 24 different points in the human genome that are linked with eye and hair colors, which past studies used to help determine the appearance of people who had died relatively recently.
At the time, Venter was trying to accelerate the process of sequencing whole genomes, first one-celled organisms, but ultimately gearing up to take on the decoding of the human genome.
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