Genomics Revolution Brad Goodner

This is a podcast about the biggest explosion in biological knowledge in human history and it is has been happening all around us over the last 30 years. The Genomics Revolution is based on 1) some basic knowledge about DNA – how it is structured and faithfully replicated, 2) an ambitious goal to fully understand the complete genetic basis of human biology, 3) new ways to store, collate, and compare incredibly large data sets, and 4) lots of determined biologists, chemists, computer scientists, and statisticians working together in new collaborations that have smashed holes in academic disciplines and forged new interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary academic departments and biotechnology companies.

How genes first came to be described, then connected to the proteins they usually encode and eventually to two methods for sequencing DNA, the stuff of genes.

The beginnings of the genomics revolution came with a bold proposal to sequence the entire genetic material, the genome, of a human being. It was very much the genetic equivalent of President Kennedy challenging the US to put a man on the moon.

How do we determine the sequence of a DNA molecule that might be hundreds of thousands to millions of base pairs in size? Not all at one time. In this episode, we will learn about two strategies that emerged for sequencing small pieces of DNA and then merging them together into a virtual copy of an entire genome.

1995 marks the beginning of the true genomics era as the first genome of a cellular organism was published. The shotgun sequencing approach proved to be successful. This episode goes over the technical details of this historic accomplishment.

The first genome sequence of a cellular organism was published in 1995. In this episode, we see what a sequence call tell us about the biology of an organism.