For the past 30 years, “whole-genome sequencing” has been a misnomer. Today the T2T Consortium published a special collection of 12 papers in Cell and Cell Genomics heralding a future of truly complete genomes for humans and nearly any vertebrate 👨🔬🐒🐦🐀🦒🐎🫏🐹🐟 (sorry, no salamanders).
Friday was my last day at NHGRI. After 10 wonderful years, my lab is headed one hour north on I-95 to set up shop at Johns Hopkins University. This is a very bittersweet move for me, as NHGRI has provided an incredibly supportive environment for my research, both in terms of colleagues and resources, and it’s hard to say goodbye. However, I am excited for the opportunity to tackle some new challenges at JHU.
In honor of ASHG week, see “Choose your human genome reference wisely” (no paywall), in which Vivien Marx interviewed me on the state of the human reference genome. Vivien is always fun to chat with and I was in a slightly opinionated mood from the start — “The idea of a single reference genome is outdated,” says NIH researcher Adam Phillippy. Some of my other quotes follow with a little added context.