Production Genomics - Tree of Life

From sample to assembly and everything around it

The Production Genomics team covers all aspects of assembly generation from sample extraction to sequence assembly, assembly curation and public release to assembly analysis. It also provides development and implementation of the underlying platforms for data tracking and visualisation.

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The team delivers high-quality chromosomal-scale reference assemblies for a multitude of projects within Tree of Life (ToL) under the umbrella of the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP). The individual workflow steps include extensive R&D and production work on

• sample preparation and nucleic acid extraction in the ToL core lab
• data QC and assembly generation in the ToL assembly team
• assembly curation in the Genome Reference Informatics team
• IT infrastructure development and data maintenance/curation in the ToL IT team
• software development for data tracking and visualisation in the ToL Platforms team

The team delivers EBP standard compliant reference assemblies at scale and is the largest producer of such assemblies worldwide (46% of all eukaryotic species’ assemblies globally to date) with further scope for scaling up. We are currently operating at the rate of one assembly every 6 hours.

All our assemblies, data, protocols and pipelines are openly accessible

• Tree of Life assemblies at ENA and Genbank
• Sanger Tree of Life Wet Laboratory Protocol Collection
• Software and pipelines
• Data and data QC
• Genome After Party post assembly analyses
• Wellcome Open Research genome notes
• Global assembly coordination in Genomes on a Tree (GoaT) 

Taxonomic distribution of assembly production (outer ring) over the eukaryotic Tree of Life, summarised at family level. Graph by Mark Blaxter December 2025