CBC News 11/2/208
Earth BioGenome Project aims to generate new discoveries, preserve rare and endangered speciesScientists launched a vast project on Thursday to map the genetic code of all 1.5 million known species of complex life on Earth, aiming to complete the work within a decade.
They described the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP) as "the next moonshot for biology" after the Human Genome Project, a 13-year $3.9 billion Cdn endeavor to map human DNA which was completed in 2003.
The EBP is expected to cost $6.2 billion and "will ultimately create a new foundation for biology to drive solutions for preserving biodiversity and sustaining human societies," said Harris Lewin, a professor at the University of California in the United States and chair of the EBP.
"Having the roadmap, the blueprints ... will be a tremendous resource for new discoveries, understanding the rules of life, how evolution works, new approaches for the conservation of rare and endangered species, and ... new resources for researchers in agricultural and medical fields," he told a briefing in London.
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https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.4889488
