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In the 1990s, Hawaii's papaya industry looked set to collapse owing to widespread destruction by the ringspot virus. But the papaya trade was saved by genetic modification that confered resistance to the virus. Now the succulent fruit is the first transgenic crop to have its entire genome sequenced. Maqsudul Alam, director of the Advanced Studies in Genomics, Proteomics and Bioinformatics programme at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, and 84 colleagues from 20 institutions mined the data on page 991. Alam tells Nature that the Pacific island's scientific capabilities now rival those of the mainland.

Why sequence the genome of a successful transgenic crop?

When they first began to export transgenic papaya, growers faced concerns about whether genetic alterations might have occurred when the gene that confers ringspot-virus resistance was introduced. Some wondered, for example, whether allergy causing proteins could result from such alterations. Knowledge of the full genome sequence should allay these fears. It will also allow us to develop solely hermaphrodite fruits, which are preferred by growers and consumers alike for their greater fruit content and smaller seed cavity.

Will the papaya genome foster new areas of scientific research?

Yes. For example, the papaya may contain genes that confer natural resistance to bacterial and fungal pathogens, and genes responsible for anti-ageing compounds. And on a more basic level, the papaya's primitive sex chromosomes are still evolving, so the genome sequence will shed light on the evolution of sex chromosomes.

Was it difficult to do this work in such a remote location?

The University of Hawaii got its first high-throughput genomics facilities in 2004, which made this study possible. We sequenced more than 2.5 billion base pairs in 18 months to piece together the papaya's 372-million-base-pair genome. We created our own bioinformatics software and assembly infrastructure with collaborators in China to complete the sequence. Even in the middle of an ocean, cutting-edge science can be done when there is a dream and vision.

What is the research climate like in Hawaii?

We now have opportunities to conduct both discovery and applied science. We are working with US collaborators on several important microbial genomes and on acute rheumatic fever, a complication of streptococcal infection, to which Polynesian children are very susceptible.