This open access book offers a comprehensive overview of the history of genomics across three different species and four decades, from the 1980s to the recent past. It takes an inclusive approach in order to capture not only the international initiatives to map and sequence the genomes of various organisms, but also the work of smaller-scale institutions engaged in the mapping and sequencing of yeast, human and pig DNA. In doing so, the authors expand the historiographical lens of genomics from a focus on large-scale projects to other forms of organisation. They show how practices such as genome mapping, sequence assembly and annotation are as essential as DNA sequencing in the history of genomics, and argue that existing depictions of genomics are too closely associated with the Human Genome Project. Exploring the use of genomic tools by biochemists, cell biologists, and medical and agriculturally-oriented geneticists, this book portrays the history of genomics as inseparably entangled with the day-to-day practices and objectives of these communities. The authors also uncover often forgotten actors such as the European Commission, a crucial funder and forger of collaborative networks undertaking genomic projects. In examining historical trajectories across species, communities and projects, the book provides new insights on genomics, its dramatic expansion during the late twentieth-century and its developments in the twenty-first century. Offering the first extensive critical examination of the nature and historicity of reference genomes, this book demonstrates how their affordances and limitations are shaped by the involvement or absence of particular communities in their production.
Author(s): Miguel García-Sancho, James Lowe
Series: Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in Modern History
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 386
City: Cham
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 Genomics, DNA Mapping and Sequencing
1.2 Moving Away from a Human Genome Project-centred History of Genomics
1.3 ‘Thick Sequencing’, Communities and ‘Genomicists’
1.4 Outline of Chapters and Structure of Our Argument
References
Part I: The Diversity of Genomics
Chapter 2: Distributed and Concentrated Strategies in the Sequencing of the Yeast Genome
2.1 Out of C. elegans Sequencing
2.2 The Distributed Strategy of the European Commission
2.3 Distributed Sequencing and Larger Genomes
References
Chapter 3: The Human Genome Project(s)
3.1 The Exception Rather Than the Rule
3.2 The UK Human Genome Mapping Project
3.3 Reference Sequence vs Catalogues of Variation
References
Part II: Communities and Reference Genomes
Chapter 4: The Funnelling Effect of the Sanger Institute
4.1 C. elegans Sequencing and the Patenting Controversy
4.2 The Wellcome Trust and its Advocacy for a ‘New Genetics’
4.3 Managerial Optimisation and the Whole-Genome Coalition
4.4 From Bespoke Map to Reference Sequence
References
Chapter 5: The Pig Community and Their Reference Genome
5.1 Mapping Markers and the Uses of Pig Genomics
5.2 The Genealogies of the Map and the Sequence
5.3 Reference Genomes and Their Affordances
References
Part III: Contextualising and Enhancing Reference Genomes
Chapter 6: Making Reference Genomes Useful: Annotation
6.1 Annotation: Pipelines and Jamborees
6.1.1 What Is Annotation and How Does It Contribute to the Production of a Usable Reference Genome?
6.1.2 Creation of Annotation Infrastructures
6.2 Annotating the Yeast, Human and Pig Genomes
6.2.1 Yeast Genome Annotation
6.2.2 Human Genome Annotation
6.2.3 Pig Genome Annotation
6.3 Annotation Strategies and Lineages of Genomics
References
Chapter 7: Improving and Going Beyond Reference Genomes
7.1 Postgenomics or Post-Reference Genomics?
7.2 Improving Genomes
7.3 Functional and Systematic Genomics Before Reference Genomes
7.4 After the Reference Genome
7.4.1 Yeast: Successive Endeavours
7.4.2 Human: Twin Tracks
7.4.3 Pigs: A Fuzzier Distinction
7.5 Seeding Webs of Reference
References
Chapter 8: Conclusion
8.1 The Never-Ending Frontier: Querying the Limits of Genomics and Characterising Progress Within It
8.2 A Dynamic View of Reference Genomes and Their Role
8.3 Genomics and Translation
8.4 Periodisation, Multispecies Approaches and Communities as Historical Actors of Genomics
References
Appendix A: Oral Histories
Appendix B: Archival Sources
Index
