A bold project to read the complete genetic sequences of every known vertebrate species reaches its first milestone by publishing new methods and the first 25 high-quality genomes.
It’s one of the most audacious projects in biology today – reading the entire genome of every bird, mammal, lizard, fish, and all other creatures with backbones.
And now comes the first major payoff from the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP): near complete, high-quality genomes of 25 species, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator Erich Jarvis with scores of coauthors report April 28, 2021, in the journal Nature. These species include the greater horseshoe bat, the Canada lynx, the platypus, and the kākāpō parrot – one of the first high-quality genomes of an endangered vertebrate species.
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