Barcode of Life
The goal of the barcode of life program is to speed the building and use of a library of short DNA sequences for identifying species of animals and plants reliably and cheaply. The Barcode of Life (BoL) refers to a short DNA sequence, from a uniform locality on the genome, used for identifying species. A mere 600 or so base pairs present in every animal cell can prove a hair or a scale comes from a homo sapiens or a particular species of fish. Sloan grants beginning in 2002 vetted the idea and then launched the international Barcode of Life Initiative. More than 150 institutions from 45 countries now form the Consortium for the Barcode of Life. Barcodes currently identify more than 47,000 species, up from 30,000 a year ago.
Program Director:
Jesse Ausubel Bio