The European Reference Genome Atlas: piloting a decentralised approach to equitable biodiversity genomics.

ABSTRACT: A genomic database of all Earth's eukaryotic species could contribute to many scientific discoveries; however, only a tiny fraction of species have genomic information available. In 2018, scientists across the world united under the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP), aiming to produce a database of high-quality reference genomes containing all ~1.5 million recognized eukaryotic species. As the European node of the EBP, the European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA) sought to implement a new decentralised, equitable and inclusive model for producing reference genomes. For this, ERGA launched a Pilot Project establishing the first distributed reference genome production infrastructure and testing it on 98 eukaryotic species from 33 European countries. Here we outline the infrastructure and explore i

SUBMITTER: Mc Cartney AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11408602 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature