25 March 2021 - COVID-19 has brought together biomedical technologies that will transform human health.

The first virus to have its genome read was an obscure little creature called ms2; the 3,569 rna letters it contained were published in 1976, the hard-won product of some ten years’ work in a well-staffed Belgian laboratory. 

The sars-cov-2 genome, almost nine times longer, was published just weeks after doctors in Wuhan first became concerned about a new pneumonia.

Read The Economist article