For decades, scientists have been working to understand the genome, the operating manual for all of life on Earth. This manual lives in unending variations inside the DNA in each organism and affects everything from an organism’s development to the rules of life more broadly, and yet it is one of the least understood aspects of biology.
Our journey into developing technologies for geneticists to study the genome of billions of humans, plants and animals began 10 years ago. A small team of researchers at Google decided to apply deep learning to various genome sequencing challenges, making it faster, more accurate and more efficient. What began in 2015 as a foundational research effort has now evolved into a global initiative, including partnerships with scientists and institutions across the globe to accelerate scientific discovery, advance healthcare and preserve biodiversity.
This work is already showing promising breakthroughs on behalf of human health — including today’s announcement of DeepSomatic, a new tool to identify cancer variants with more accuracy. But our work is not yet done, and more tools are coming. Today, we’re taking a moment to look back at some of the key milestones and groundbreaking tools from our first 10 years in genomics, powered by AI.