Question: Consider the following statements regarding Earth Bio-Genome Project (EBP):
- This mission aims at sequencing and cataloguing the genome of all living eukaryotic organism only.
- Till date roughly 0.2% of total complex life forms have their genome sequenced.
Of the above which is/are correct?
(a)1 only
(b)2 only
(c)1 and 2 both
(d)None of the above
Answer: (c)
Related facts:
- An ambitious mission, Earth Bio-Genome Project (EBP) was announced on 1st November, 2018: to map the entire genome of all animal, plant, fungus and protozoan on the earth.
- Decade long process to map the genomes of about 1.5 million species will roughly cost $4.7 billion. Arguably the most ambitious proposal in the history of biology, will completely transform our scientific understanding of life on earth.
- Till date only 3500 complex life forms, roughly 0.2% of total have their genome sequenced.
- It will provide new resources to cope with the rapid loss of biodiversity and habitat changes that are primarily due to human activities and climate change.
- UK’s Welcome Sanger Institute has taken the initiative to come forward to map 66,000 species in the UK. This institute was involved in the Human Genome Project.
By Ramayan Upadhyay
Links:
https://www.earthbiogenome.org/
http://www.pnas.org/content/115/17/4325.long#sec-16
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_BioGenome_Project
https://www.ozy.com/presidential-daily-brief/pdb-90376/the-coders-90386