The automated sequencing machine changed everything. Before it came along, the hackneyed image of the biologist in a white lab coat staring intently through a microscope with caged rats scurrying in the background was not so far from the truth.
Twenty years ago, like today, the most interesting work in biology revolved around studying DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), the double-helix of genetic code that living cells use to create new cells. Back then, DNA research involved a painfully slow process of manually dismantling DNA into its component nucleotides — the molecules that make up genes. In the mid-1980’s a company called Applied Biosystems, Inc. began selling a machine that vastly sped things up: the automated sequencing machine. Like the textile industry after the introduction of the mechanical loom, biology was changed forever.
Within ten years, sequencing machines were fast enough that researchers could seriously consider cataloging the sequence of three billion nucleotides that make up the 30,00035,000 human genes and creating a kind of blueprint of humanity. The Human Genome Project was born. And with it came the task of making sense of the three gigabytes of data that comprise our DNA. Add to that all of the contextual information about the human genome — published research about certain sequences and information on the relationship between sequences — and the various algorithms for analyzing the data, and finally the fact that the human genome is merely one…
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