In the past two decades the field of equine genomics has exploded, leading to the discovery of genetic variants for coat colors, gene associations with athletic ability, and gene mutations responsible for a variety of health conditions and diseases.

Starting in 1995, Ernie Bailey, PhD, an equine geneticist and professor at the University of Kentucky's (UK) Gluck Equine Research Center, coordinated an international effort to create a gene map for horses; this ultimately led to sequencing the horse genome in 2006. The effort involved more than 200 scientists from 30 institutions and created valuable research tools to address equine health problems that had not yielded to earlier technologies.

At the 13th Mary Passenger Memorial Lecture on Equine Medicine and Surgery, held Oct. 10, Bailey—one of this year's Equine Research Hall of Fame inductees—spoke about advances in equine genomics and their contribution to equine viral arteritis (EVA) studies. He began with a brief history of genome sequencing.

A key event occurred in 2003 when geneticists completed the human genome. They discovered that humans have 20,000 genes and that only 2% of DNA encodes the proteins