...from Butterfield's first 'build', it's clear they're on track: one section is almost 6,000 base pairs long and another is 7,000 pair long. For the next five hours, they keep reloading. At 2:30 am, Butterfield hits the 'Eureka' moment. Build 28 comes back in one piece, right down to and including the tell-tale polytale - a long string of 'A's that always marks the end of a piece of messenger RNA.
For the wet-lab crew, euphoria gives over to exhaustion. They file out to get some sleep. Butterfield keeps working--analyzing, verifying, comparing the completed sequence to others on file. When Stott comes back at 4 am, he startles Butterfield so badly, he is at risk of being impaled on the pen that Butterfield reflexively flings across the room.
- BC Business Sept. 2003
Thanks to technology and a spirit of global cooperation, the first genome of the virus that causes SARS was mapped by Canadian researchers in less than a week; soon after it was identified as a coronavirus.
- Newsweek Magazine Apr. 2003
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Cracking the SARS Coronavirus Genome - April 2003 The Genome Sequence of the SARS-Associated Coronavirus Science 30 May 2003 Complete SARS sequence and details https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/30271926 BC Team unravels SARS The Province 2003 The Mystery of SARS Newsweek Mission Impossible BC Business 2003 SARS story in (I think only time my photo is in a Chinese magazine)! Ming Pao Saturday Magazine 2003 Linux journal article of the SARS sequencing http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6977 |
Marco Marra holding a DNA chip for the sequencing machine and Caroline Astell holding the sequencing image I printed at 4am April 12 - The Vancouver Sun.
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| A Puzzle to Solve |
I'm at my computer, followed by Anca, Obi and Steve Jones, Bioinformatics Leader at BC Genome Sciences Centre
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Saturday night, April 12, 2003, confirming we had the complete sequence
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Our Saturday morning snacks
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