Human Genome

Researchers are building a much more diverse set of reference genomes called a pangenome that combines genetic material from 47 people from various places around the world.

The 2020 Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded for research into "rewriting the code of life." Emmanuelle Charpentier of France and Jennifer Doudna of the U.S. are the laureates.

Medical and genetic data from more than a million Americans are now in scientific databases. Some programs hoard the data, while others share widely with scientists, hoping to speed medical discovery.