Mark this as a catch-all crash course in genomics for your non-scientist friends and family. In a special eight-part report on the human genome, The Economist details advances – and disappointments – in biomedical research since the completion of the Human Genome Project. From Venter’s synthetic genome to the sequencing of Neanderthal DNA, to personal genomics, drug discovery, and the build-up at the BGI, the author details nearly every major event in genomics post-HGP. "Though understanding the genome has proved more complicated than expected, no discovery made so far suggests anything other than that all the information needed to make a cell is squirreled away in the DNA. Yet the whole is somehow greater than the sum of its parts," the article reads, succinctly summarizing the previously unforeseen challenges and complexities of understanding the genetic code.
The Daily Scan would like to thank the story’s illustrator, Emiliano Ponizi, for some great desktop background images.