It's also the 10th anniversary of the completion of the Human Genome Project, which set out to sequence the more than 3 billion letters in our genetic code.
As well as leading China's contribution to the human genome sequence and working with Danish partners on the pig genome, this week the institute announced completion of a detailed map of the rice genome.
Ten years after the completion of the human genome project, competition between instrument makers and attempts to capture medical value from DNA sequence data continue to make the news.