Editing Genomics (section)

=== Early sequencing efforts ===
Following [[Rosalind Franklin]]'s confirmation of the helical structure of DNA, [[James D. Watson]] and [[Francis Crick]]'s publication of the structure of DNA in 1953 and [[Fred Sanger]]'s publication of the [[Amino acid]] sequence of insulin in 1955, nucleic acid sequencing became a major target of early [[molecular biology|molecular biologists]].<ref name = "Ankeny_2003"/> In 1964, [[Robert W. Holley]] and colleagues published the first nucleic acid sequence ever determined, the [[ribonucleic acid|ribonucleotide]] sequence of [[alanine]] [[tRNA|transfer RNA]].<ref name = "Holley_1965a"/><ref name = "Holley_1965b"/> Extending this work, [[Marshall Nirenberg]] and [[Philip Leder]] revealed the triplet nature of the [[genetic code]] and were able to determine the sequences of 54 out of 64 [[codons]] in their experiments.<ref name = "Nuremberg_1965"/> In 1972, [[Walter Fiers]] and his team at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology of the [[University of Ghent]] ([[Ghent]], [[Belgium]]) were the first to determine the sequence of a gene: the gene for [[Bacteriophage MS2]] coat protein.<ref name = "Min_1972"/> Fiers' group expanded on their MS2 coat protein work, determining the complete nucleotide-sequence of bacteriophage MS2-RNA (whose genome encodes just four genes in 3569 [[base pair]]s &#91;bp&#93;) and [[SV40|Simian virus 40]] in 1976 and 1978, respectively.<ref name = "Fiers_1976"/><ref name = "Fiers_1978"/>