DNA Sequences Are Now Widely Available
In the video, Dr. Joe DeRisi describes how affordable DNA sequencing has become. (43 seconds)
The number of DNA and RNA base pairs available in the GenBank database from 1983 to 2011.
The chart shows that from 1983 to 1999, the number of billions of base pairs is close to zero, but after 1999, there is a steady increase. In 2003, approximately 20 billion base pairs were deposited in GenBank; in 2009, about 100 billion base pairs, and in 2011, over 140 billion base pairs were deposited.
Rapid DNA sequencing technology has made many DNA sequences from many different organisms available. It is now possible to directly compare the sequence of genes among many closely or distantly related plants, animals, and microorganisms.
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