Schwartz I
New York Medical College, Valhalla, New York 10595, USA.
Emerg Infect Dis. 2000 Sep-Oct;6(5):493-5. doi: 10.3201/eid0605.000508.
The era of genomics (the study of genes and their function) began a scant dozen years ago with a suggestion by James Watson that the complete DNA sequence of the human genome be determined. Since that time, the human genome project has attracted a great deal of attention in the scientific world and the general media; the scope of the sequencing effort, and the extraordinary value that it will provide, has served to mask the enormous progress in sequencing other genomes. Microbial genome sequencing, of particular interest to the community studying emerging infectious diseases, prompted the series of articles presented in the following pages. These articles review technological and scientific advances that have occurred since publication of the Haemophilus influenzae genome sequence in July 1995; that was the first demonstration that an entire genome sequence could be deciphered by a "shotgun" approach, i.e., the sequencing and assembly of random fragments of the genome. This is now the method of choice for sequencing of most other genomes, including human (as performed by Celera Genomics).
基因组学（对基因及其功能的研究）时代始于短短十二年前，当时詹姆斯·沃森提出测定人类基因组的完整DNA序列。从那时起，人类基因组计划在科学界和大众媒体中引起了极大关注；测序工作的规模及其将带来的非凡价值，掩盖了其他基因组测序方面取得的巨大进展。对于研究新发传染病的群体来说，微生物基因组测序尤其令人关注，这促成了以下几页中一系列文章的发表。这些文章回顾了自1995年7月流感嗜血杆菌基因组序列公布以来所取得的技术和科学进展；该序列是首个通过“鸟枪法”（即对基因组随机片段进行测序和组装）破译整个基因组序列的证明。现在，这是包括人类基因组（由赛雷拉基因组公司进行测序）在内的大多数其他基因组测序的首选方法。
