Eric Lander's assessment of the impact of the publication of the human genome sequence (Nature 470, 187–197; 2011) does not comment on the substantial progress made in research-infrastructure development in areas such as resources, technology, computational biology, training, education and ethical, legal and societal issues, as envisaged by the genome community (Nature 422, 835–847; 2003).

Look at the key experimental resource of human cohorts. For example, more than 500,000 volunteers have now signed up for the world's largest prospective study, UK Biobank. Comparable studies are ongoing in Norway and China. A retrospective study, Biobank Japan, has already proved its investigational value. Researchers are also building a global network of cohort studies through the Canada-based Public Population Project in Genomics.

Biobanking networks are emerging across the European Union. Examples are the Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources Research Infrastructure and the UK DNA Banking Network.

Advanced data-management systems at the Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid, the US National Center for Biotechnology Information and the European Bioinformatics Institute near Cambridge, UK, are facilitating meta-analysis and experimental design.

Across the European Research Area, under the aegis of the Innovative Medicines Initiative and the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures, an ambitious programme of research-infrastructure development is under way for the entire 'value chain' of medicines. As part of this, biomedical education and training are being revamped through, for example, the public–private European Medicines Research Training Network.

Without such experimentation in and development of its research infrastructure, the fecundity of genome-based research will not fulfil its promise for health and society.