The newly announced Earth BioGenome Project is aiming to sequence, catalog, and characterize the DNA of all living eukaryotes on Earth!
I just love it when a few people want to change the world, and this is exactly what could happen if the newly announced “Earth BioGenome Project” (EBP) is successful. This extremely ambitious project wants to sequence, catalog, and characterize the entire genome of all known eukaryotic species on Earth, and give everyone access to this huge amount of knowledge.
An image that shows the huge amount of diversity within the eukaryotic domain. Images by André Karwath, Hans Hillewaert, Aurora M. Nedelcu, Aaron Logan, Leif Stridvall, the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), compilation by Vojtěch Dostál - posted with the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.
There are about 1.5 million known eukaryotes in the world, and so far, only 0.2 % of these have had their genome sequenced, which means that there is a whole lot of work to do. In addition to these 1.5 million known species, there is an estimated 10 to 15 million unknown species, and the project hope to be able to sequence a lot of these as well.
And for those who are not confident about what an eukaryote is; it’s any organism whose cells have a nucleus that is enclosed by a membrane. Most eukaryotes also have membrane-bound organelles, and tend to be multicellular (but not all of them are multicellular or have organelles). Any organism that is in the animal, plant or fungi kingdoms are eukaryotic, and only bacteria and archaea are not eukaryotes – these are instead called prokaryotic.
Anyway, let’s return to the Earth BioGenome Project! It seems just like a project that I like, because they want to make the data from the sequences available to anyone who needs it, which means that it can be the cornerstone for thousands of new scientific discoveries. This will allow researchers to compare the genome of several species with that of other species without having to actually collect and sequence the DNA, and they can instead just get the data from a database.
This means that there’s a huge potential for new discoveries both when it comes to science itself, but also for discoveries that can lead to innovation in medicine, conservation biology, agriculture and other practical uses.
Can it be done?
It seems like an almost impossible task, but that was also what people said when the Human Genome Project launched it in 1990. The scientists behind the project wants to be able to complete this new Earth BioGenome Project within ten years, and estimate that it will cost a total of $4.7 billion! This is $1.7 billion more than the Human Genome Project, but then again it will cover at least 1.5 million times as many genomes.
The price tag might seem insane, but keep in mind that the benefit of the Human Genome Project has been estimated by the Battelle Memorial Institute to be nearly $1 trillion, which means that the benefit is a lot higher than the cost.
The Earth BioGenome Project might not have direct applications for most humans, but it could potentially save lots of lives with the development of new medicine based on data from the project, or lead to increased or improved agriculture, which means that there’s a lot of potential here.
While I’m optimistic that it can be done, let’s not forget that 1.5 million species (or more) is an insane number, and every single sequence is a lot of work, so this will require a huge amount of dedication from scientists all around the world.
Thanks for reading
Thanks for reading my post about the Earth BioGenome Project. I linked to the original announcement which was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences at the beginning, but here it is again if you want to take a look.
It will certainly be very exciting to follow this project in the coming years, and I’m sure I will be posting more about it once it gets going. Thanks for stopping by!
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Earth BioGenome Project is a good initiative to sequence, catalog, and characterize the DNA of all living eukaryotes on Earth. Task is daunting but hopefully induction of modern equipment will make it possible. every big task started with a little steps i think it's a great step to attain huge knoweldge.
4.7 billion Dollars cost is nothing infront of 1.0 trillion Dollar benefits. Let's hope for the best. Hats off to the scientist and initiators who thought this idea. Thanks for sharing @valth
You're welcome. Yeah, let's hope for the best. And even if they are not able to complete all 1.5 million of them, at least they will complete a big percentage of that number :)
Well said a big percentage of this number is beneficial. Hopefully their will provide them energy to complete 1.5 million job. Let's hope for the best
Is it really necessary?
That depends on what you think is necessary I suppose. Do you think science in general is necessary?
In general yes but in general I think we should be using it a lot better.
Its good news @valth
The Human Genome Project took time because of the less advanced machines. But now we have more advanced sequencers which will help it complete fast, but yeah sequencing every species is really something big..... Let's see.
Yeah, it will be a lot faster to sequence a genome with today's tools, but 1.5 million is just a huge number! But it will most likely all depend on how many universities and other institutions that ends up joining the project I suppose.
It's an ambitious project...So much data...
The cost may seem high but the overall impact of the project can be far beyond our expectations...Thumbs up to the scientist putting all the hard work together to make this task possible.
Yeah, just imagine how difficult it must be to handle all that data properly! Maybe they should upload it on a blockchain? ;) Hehe
That's actually an excellent idea...I am sure blockchain can handle that much data easily and securely...e.g. steem blockchain...just imagine the speed!!!
I'm a huge fan of the blockchain and a huge user of genomic data. As implemented, putting these two together is a bad idea.
Can you elaborate please???
I'm actually learning more as I did a little reading to make worthwhile reply to you. It's looking like it may end up becoming a post - short answer is that it may be possible, but the data size means not on blockchains as we commonly use them now. The big deal is if the other strengths of a blockchain bring any value to the party.
Maybe you can make a post and send me the link. As a new learner, I would definitely like to learn the pro and cons of using blockchain in this real world scenario.
Dammit @xabi, you and @valth made me think and now there's a bear of a 2.5k word essay up on my blog! ;)
https://steemit.com/steemstem/@effofex/wherein-i-ramble-along-trying-to-think-about-putting-genomes-on-blockchains
While you are probably correct, it would be amazing to have a project such as this one published on a truly decentralized platform such as a blockchain. I suppose it's difficult to handle the size of the data though?
Yeah, it's the data size. I actually had drafted a reply to @xabi, but it's turning out to be a learning experience for me and getting too large, so it'll probably end up becoming a post.
Ah, that's cool. I'm looking forward to reading it ;)
I feel like I should apologize in advance.
What a great initiative it seems super incredible that they want to start this project, people like that the world needs so we can rescue and take care of it, excellent post friend does a good job informing about the news of nature and the environment
Thanks. Yeah, it's a great project for sure!
I read about this project on newsweek four days ago and understood that if this initiative is being acccomplished, it will go a long way in cataloging and analyzing the DNA of every known eukaryotes. Every one of them that has a well defined nucleus with membrane.
Reason why bacteria are not included.
Thanks for the reminder
Yep, that's right :)