It is an international cooperation project with members from more than 50 separate institutions and was launched in February 2017.
[1][2][3][4][5] In October 2021, VGP partnered with Colossal Biosciences to sequence and assemble elephant genomes for preservation purposes.
[8] In July 2022, VGP and Colossal Biosciences announced that they successfully sequenced the entire Asian elephant genome; this is the first time that mammalian genetic code has been fully sequenced to this degree since the Human Genome Project was completed in the early 2000s.
[9] In November 2022, VGP successfully sequenced the Nile Rat genome in order to facilitate research on type 2 diabetes and the health effects of circadian rhythm disruption.
The resulting sequence showed that the vast majority of expected protein-coding genes were accounted for.