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Current role suggests the shape of future work opportunities

Nature volume 409, pages 963–964 (2001)Cite this article

Before they could proceed into the uncharted territory of human high-throughput sequencing, geneticists needed maps. First, scientists created a genetic map, which plotted the approximate location on each chromosome of genetic features such as a gene or particular base sequence, determined by studying genetic material from small populations of families. Then they sketched a physical map, using molecular biology to determine the location of specific sequences.

Combining, then refining, those maps has been critical to the production of the draft human genome published today. By locating a number of DNA sequences on the chromosomes, biologists provided themselves with a framework on which they could place sequence data. Without maps, accurately positioning DNA sequences would have been akin to assembling a 3-billion-piece jigsaw with no guiding picture, using pieces of jigsaw characterised by only four shapes. Even the private sequencing venture run by Celera Genomics has turned to the publicly published maps as a guide to assembling their sequence.

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  1. Helen Gavaghan is a freelance science and technology journalist based in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire.

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Gavaghan, H. Current role suggests the shape of future work opportunities. Nature 409, 963–964 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35057445

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