Interview with Dave Steward: Commonwealth Oral History Project

Interview with Dave Steward, conducted 17th April 2013 as part of the Commonwealth Oral History Project. The project aims to produce a unique digital research resource on the oral history of the Commonwealth since 1965 through sixty oral history interviews with leading figures in the recent history of the organisation. It will provide an essential research tool for anyone investigating the history of the Commonwealth and will serve to promote interest in and understanding of the organisation. Biography: Steward, Dave. 1945- . Born in Nairobi, Kenya. Educated at the University of Stellenbosch, 1962-65. Joined the South African Department of Foreign Affairs in 1966. Ambassador to the United Nations in New York, 1981-82. Policy Adviser on Southwest Africa/Namibia/Angola, 1983-85. Head, South African Communication Service, 1986-92. Director-General, Office of the South African President, 1992-94. Executive Director of the FW de Klerk Foundation, 1999- . Managing Director, Canopus Consultancies, 1997-

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead