Writing assignment #5: Summary for a General News Article

John Paul Cross

Genetics, Dr. Rinehart-Kim

            The article covers the research a group of scientists working with the University of California in Santa Cruz that worked to fill in gaps amounting to approximately 8% of the human genome. The study focused on sections of the genome that were primarily filled with repeating sections, as the “short-read” technology used to map the genome prior to this study had difficulties properly placing repeating text sequences. One new technique used was able to accurately decode and read long repeating sections, while another technique used cell types that only contained DNA from the cell’s father aiding in simplifying decoding efforts. The areas with extreme repetition appear to have high variability and may offer insights into human evolution and development, providing insight in up to 2 million areas of variability in the genome that may provide information into human evolution and variation. The study also sheds insights into how centromeres function during cell division, and the increased detail with which researchers may examine those areas of the genetic code may lead to further discoveries that could greatly expand the potential for human genomic study and therapy.

The guardian article while brief, contains most of the relevant material covered in the original study while putting the content in terms easily understood by the average reader. It avoids making grandiose claims about the findings or falsifying claims about the data collected from the study. The article does however do a poor job of citing the original article and does not appear to cite the original source.

The article written by the National Human Genome Research Institute on the other hand went far more in depth on the subject and highlighted the key elements of the research far more clearly, emphasizing the use of long-read techniques as well as the importance of better mapping five chromosome arms and millions of variations in the human genome discovered as a direct result of completing the genome. While somewhat content dense and jargon-heavy, the article provides a much more complete look at the developments spawned from this research and properly cites the proper article.

            The article written by Medicalxpress also did a decent job as summarizing the content covered by the initial study, as it too summarized most of the essential information covered in the parent article while not allowing itself to become too bogged down by minor details. The article also did a fair job at citing the parent study, providing proper information in a manner congruous with other scientific journals and websites like the NHGRI. However, the article from Medicalxpress did not go into nearly as much detail as the NHGRI and as a result missed some of the techniques utilized in the study and focused more on the history and significance of the study. Overall, however, the article did a fine job of summarizing the material covered in the study.

References

Devlin, H. First Complete Gap-free human genome sequence published. The Guardian (2022). Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/mar/31/first-complete-gap-free-human-genome-sequence-published. (Accessed: 1st April 2022)

Nurk, S. et al. The Complete Sequence of a Human Genome. Science 376, 44-53 (2022).

Ganguly, P. and Zisk, R., 2022. Researchers generate the first complete, gapless sequence of a human genome. [online] Genome.gov. Available at: <https://www.genome.gov/news/news-release/researchers-generate-the-first-complete-gapless-sequence-of-a-human-genome> [Accessed 2 April 2022].

Medicalxpress.com. 2022. First complete, gapless sequence of a human genome reveals hidden regions. [online] Available at: <https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-03-gapless-sequence-human-genome-reveals.html> [Accessed 2 April 2022].