Forty years ago, two papers described the first tractable methods for determining the order of the chemical bases in stretches of DNA. Before these 1977 publications, molecular biologists had been able to sequence only snippets.
The evolution of DNA sequencing from these nascent protocols to today’s high-throughput technologies has occurred at a breathtaking pace. Nearly 30 years of exponential growth in data generation have given way, in the past decade, to super-exponential growth. And the resultant data have spawned transformative applications in basic biology and beyond — from archaeology and criminal investigation to prenatal diagnostics.
What will the next 40 years bring?
