It wasn’t that long ago that genome sequencing was a time-consuming and costly task.
Jacinda Ardern visits ESR, the organisation that undertook New Zealand's COVID-19 genome sequencing. Photo: ESR / Supplied
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But during the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s become a feature of everyday Kiwis’ vocabulary and a routine part of our response – proving especially useful for contact tracing when unexpected cases popped up out of nowhere.
New Zealand’s early approach to sequencing the genome of every positive case also revealed important information about the nature of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, such as its ability to spread through the air.
In this episode of Our Changing World, we talk to two scientists from ESR on the frontline of New Zealand’s Covid-19 genome sequencing efforts: Dr Jemma Geoghegan and Dr Joep de Ligt.
Learn more:
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Listen to the full episode on Our Changing World
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Dr Jemma Geoghegan’s research into virus evolution was the focus of the episode Investigating the virosphere
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The Detail podcast have an episode about filling in the final pieces of the human genome puzzle
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If you want to learn more about DNA, genes, RNA and gene expression, listen to A new way to make vaccines
