Rockefeller University

Program for the Human Environment

The Barcode Blog

A mostly scientific blog about short DNA sequences for species identification and discovery. I encourage your commentary. -- Mark Stoeckle

Subscribe to this blog

Sign up for email notifications

«
»

Everyday DNA

GPS devices for civilian use were first introduced 1982. The TI 4100 from Texas Instrument Company cost $150,000, weighed 50 lbs, and had heavy demand from land surveyors (GPS World, December 2004). Thanks to steady improvements in cost, size, and power demand, GPS technology is now a standard feature in cellular phones, meeting such daily needs as finding the nearest coffeeshop. The simplicity of everyday use is undergirded by an enormous investment in technology. In a 1997 report, RAND corporation estimated approximately $8 billion had been spent to develop, launch, and maintain the 24-satellite system that provides GPS signals, and the ongoing costs were $300 million/y.

The GPS history suggests viewing the current drive to establish a DNA reference library for millions of plant and animal species as infrastructure investment, analogous to the GPS satellite system. It is relatively expensive but once established will enable diverse new applications for society and science. What uses will improvements in DNA sequencing married to a robust DNA barcode library bring? 

Food authentication is likely to be one major application, including a wide array of products such as fish, olive oil, and packaged mixtures such as soups and pet food.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 at 11:54 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

3 Responses to “Everyday DNA”

  1. Hugo Mejia Says:
    November 26th, 2008 at 11:04 am

    Not only food authentication but identification of plant and animal smuggling.

  2. What Is That You’re Eating? « strange behaviors Says:
    December 4th, 2008 at 10:05 am

    […] But Mark Stoeckle at The Barcode of Life likens it to the $8 billion effort to make GPS a reality.  Like GPS, DNA barcoding will also become a part of everyday life, he argues, particularly when it comes to using DNA barcoding to protect the food supply. […]

  3. Jon Boyd Ann Arbor real estate buyer agent Says:
    March 30th, 2009 at 10:24 am

    After reading a few of the DNA mapping posts on your blog (particularly this one) I am reminded of the scene from the Harrison Ford movie Bladerunner, where they magnify a photograph of a snake to such a high degree that they could read the serial number or model number off one of its scales.

    They use that to determine the origin.

    Little did the writers know that 25 years later the snake’s DNA would be providing that kind of “map”.

Contact: mark.stoeckle@rockefeller.edu

About this site

This web site is an outgrowth of the Taxonomy, DNA, and Barcode of Life meeting held at Banbury Center, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, September 9-12, 2003. It is designed and managed by Mark Stoeckle, Perrin Meyer, and Jason Yung at the Program for the Human Environment (PHE) at The Rockefeller University.

About the Program for the Human Environment

The involvement of the Program for the Human Environment in DNA barcoding dates to Jesse Ausubel's attendance in February 2002 at a conference in Nova Scotia organized by the Canadian Center for Marine Biodiversity. At the conference, Paul Hebert presented for the first time his concept of large-scale DNA barcoding for species identification. Impressed by the potential for this technology to address difficult challenges in the Census of Marine Life, Jesse agreed with Paul on encouraging a conference to explore the contribution taxonomy and DNA could make to the Census as well as other large-scale terrestrial efforts. In his capacity as a Program Director of the Sloan Foundation, Jesse turned to the Banbury Conference Center of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, whose leader Jan Witkowski prepared a strong proposal to explore both the scientific reliability of barcoding and the processes that might bring it to broad application. Concurrently, PHE researcher Mark Stoeckle began to work with the Hebert lab on analytic studies of barcoding in birds. Our involvement in barcoding now takes 3 forms: assisting the organizational development of the Consortium for the Barcode of Life and the Barcode of Life Initiative; contributing to the scientific development of the field, especially by studies in birds, and contributing to public understanding of the science and technology of barcoding and its applications through improved visualization techniques and preparation of brochures and other broadly accessible means, including this website. While the Sloan Foundation continues to support CBOL through a grant to the Smithsonian Institution, it does not provide financial support for barcoding research itself or support to the PHE for its research in this field.