Interviewee: Ewan Birney. Other genome sequencing project.

There are some sort of unusual genomes being sequenced and, and one of them which is not so unusual in fact is, is the pig genome for example. But it's being sequenced, or the money behind it is from a Danish/Chinese consortium, and why the Danish and the Chinese? But those two countries have a big investment in pig farming, so that's why they've put the money into the pig genome. Another genome that's being done at the moment is the sea squirt, and again why on earth the sea squirt genome? Well the answer is that in fact it's the primitive type of organism that has a brain and a central nervous system like us. It has a notochord. And so it's the most basic type of organism that has some of the body parts that we have. And so by understanding that genome, we may be able to understand our own body parts better. Nobody really knows, of course, it may tell us nothing.

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