Genome Biology: The Second Modern Synthesis

A scientific dream proposed some 20 years ago has been realized—the completion of the DNA sequence for the Human Genome Project (HGP) in 2004. As a result, an entirely new field of biological research has arisen: genome biology or genomics is celebrated for its unprecedented scale, intrinsically digital output, and systematic approach to getting all the data. Its sequel, the HapMap Project, will reach fruition later this year. These projects established new precedents for international collaborations and open data access. Chinese scientists contributed to 1% of the HGP and 10% of the HapMap. They also initiated and completed several projects of their own, including the Chinese Superhybrid Rice Genome Project, the Silkworm Genome Project, the Chicken Genome Polymorphism Project, and a Genome Survey of the Porcine Genome. These projects will benefit fields as diverse as agriculture, medicine, and the economy in general. Biologists have celebrated every new genome that has been sequenced and deposited into the public databases. With each new data set, the clamor for more data grows. This is possible because of a relentless focus on technology development. DNA sequencing costs have decreased from $3 billion USD, some 20 years ago, to $30 million USD today, for a typical human-sized genome. Indeed, one of the stated goals of the HGP was to provide a compelling vision to motivate this technology development. The most recent vision is the Human Cancer Genome Project, which hopes to reduce these costs to $100,000 USD, and eventually $1,000 USD. Follow-up activities made possible by having these copious data are popularly called “omics” (e.g. proteomics and metabolomics). Despite the excitement and obvious practical benefit of having so much data, it has been asked if there are deeper fundamental questions that can be answered. We address that issue here. Consider the information that has been acquired. For any given species, this includes but is not limited to: (1) a complete DNA sequence; (2) list of genes and encoded proteins tentatively annotated as regards to