
Frontiers in Science Lead Article
Published on 04 Sep 2025
Frontiers in Science Lead Article
Published on 04 Sep 2025
Join a complimentary virtual symposium on next steps for The Earth BioGenome Phase II, with lead authors Professor Harris Lewin (Arizona State University, USA), Professor Marc Blaxter (Wellcome Sanger Institute, UK), and more.
With plans for 25 international hubs, the Earth BioGenome Project is poised to increase global genomics capacity and deliver high-quality reference genomes, argues Prof Paul Flicek, The Jackson Laboratory, USA and University of Cambridge, UK.
Like the Human Genome Project before it, the Earth BioGenome Project must evolve beyond sequencing toward pangenomics, phenotyping, and training future scientists, urges Prof Gane Ka-Shu Wong, University of Alberta, Canada and BGI-Research, China.
The Earth BioGenome Project is scientifically viable and globally coordinated—but success now hinges on strategic policy leadership, sustained funding, and unrestricted data access, asserts Dr Richard A. Gibbs, Baylor College of Medicine, USA.
The ongoing success of Phase I of the Earth Biogenome Project (EBP) demonstrates the feasibility of producing reference-quality genomes at scale, enabling the project to achieve its overarching goal: to sequence 1.67 million eukaryotic species in 10 years.
Using knowledge from Phase I projects, we propose a revised strategy for Phase II: collecting specimens for 300,000 species and sequencing 150,000 species, representing at least half of the eukaryotic genera, in 4 years.
Technical advances in DNA sequencing, genome assembly, and genome annotation have reduced costs and increased throughput to the point that we envisage globally distributed production of reference-quality genomes for most eukaryotic species for a total cost of about US$3.9 billion—US$800 million less than initially envisioned.
Key challenges remain, including enhancing global coordination and building communities of users and interested parties; creating an inclusive, global biodiversity genomics workforce; developing effective access and benefit-sharing methodologies; facilitating collection at scale of vouchered specimens; sequencing reference genomes from single-celled and very small organisms; enhancing functional annotation; and building large-scale toolkits for comparative genomics.
Technological and operational innovations, such as a “sequencing lab in a box,” have the potential to radically transform the global capacity for biodiversity genome sequencing, facilitating national benefit-sharing agreements and the realization of societal impacts on Indigenous peoples and local communities.
We propose the establishment of a US$0.5 billion Foundational Impact Project fund to support the immediate use of the genome sequences in conservation, agriculture, biodiversity monitoring, biotechnology, and basic sciences, focused on supporting initiatives in the Global South.
A summary of the lead article in a Q&A format, with infographics and a video.
An article on next-generation sequencing written for—and peer reviewed by—kids aged 8-15 years.
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