Evolution of Molecular Biology Investigation during the Disruptive Growth of Sequencing

Since the advent of polony genomic sequencing technologies, sequence yield per unit of cost has continually increased at a rate greater than Moore’s law. This continued expansion of sequencing has allowed projects which once were required to be conducted at centralized nationally created laboratories to be carried out efficiently in mass by individual researchers. Due to this disruptive growth, sequencing based methodologies have extended testing of biological hypothesis into research laboratories previously not associated with large scale sequencing data. Here we present an overview of the evolution of hypothesis testing by multiple diverse biological research groups through the integration of large scale sequencing. These studies include key insights into turf management through whole genome analysis of a complex grass and a group of fungal pathogens, the study of the genomic background driving murine evolution and species recognition by transcriptome and genome sequencing, a SNP diversity assessment of the American Bald eagle, and the assembly of terabase sized metagenomics datasets for the study of the rare members of the microbiome. The incorporation of large scale sequencing methodologies has increased the scope of scientific inquiry and created scientific analysis opportunities for these research groups which were previously either practically intractable or outright impossible. Future developments in both sequencing technology and de novo creation of DNA poise to continue the this dramatic expansion and evolution of biological scientific inquiry.