The program, which is still in the planning stage and not financed, will focus on sequencing of eukaryotic populations, including all plants, animals and single cell organisms. In a first step the genomes of about 9330 eukaryotic families will be refined to obtain a reference genome that is comparable to or better than the human reference genome. Then, genomic sketches will be drawn from one species from each genus out of 140,000 to 200,000 eukaryotic genera. Finally, the remaining 1.5 million known eukaryotic species will be subjected to low-coverage sequencing. As the world’s largest genomics research and development center, BGI has launched an independent sequencing system. BGI’s Yang Huanming and Zhang Guojie will be involved in the project.
China Bio news release, March 7, 2017