Earth BioGenome Project: Sequencing life for the future of life

Abstract

Increasing our understanding of Earth’s biodiversity and responsibly stewarding its resources are among the most crucial scientific and social challenges of the new millennium. These challenges require fundamental new knowledge of the organization, evolution, functions, and interactions among millions of the planet’s organisms. Herein, we present a perspective on the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP), a moonshot for biology that aims to sequence, catalog, and characterize the genomes of all of Earth’s eukaryotic biodiversity over a period of 10 years. The outcomes of the EBP will inform a broad range of major issues facing humanity, such as the impact of climate change on biodiversity, the conservation of endangered species and ecosystems, and the preservation and enhancement of ecosystem services. We describe hurdles that the project faces, including data-sharing policies that ensure a permanent, freely available resource for future scientific discovery while respecting access and benefit sharing guidelines of the Nagoya Protocol. We also describe scientific and organizational challenges in executing such an ambitious project, and the structure proposed to achieve the project’s goals. The far-reaching potential benefits of creating an open digital repository of genomic information for life on Earth can be realized only by a coordinated international effort.

Keywords

Affiliated Institutions

• University of California, Berkeley US
• George Washington University US
• World Economic Forum CH
• Harvard University US
• University of Cambridge GB
• Natural History Museum Aarhus DK
• Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute US
• Instituto de Botânica BR
• National Museum of Natural History US
• Rockefeller University US
• Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo BR
• BGI Group (China) CN
• University of California, Davis US
• Universidade de São Paulo BR
• Smithsonian Institution US
• Norwegian University of Science and Technology
• Howard Hughes Medical Institute US
• University of Copenhagen DK
• Baylor College of Medicine US
• Kunming Institute of Zoology CN
• Milken Institute US
• Florida Museum of Natural History US
• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign US
• Chinese Academy of Sciences CN
• University of California, Santa Cruz US
• National Zoological Park US
• John Muir Health US
• Joint Genome Institute US
• University of Florida US
• Institute of the Environment
• University of California, Santa Barbara US
• Wellcome Sanger Institute GB
• China National GeneBank CN
• Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew GB
• Beltsville Agricultural Research Center US

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