Saiga antelope. Photo via Nothing in Biology Makes Sense.

This week at the collaborative blog Nothing in Biology Makes Sense, Sarah Hird explains how to identify the ingredients in traditional Chinese medecines—with a whole pile of sequence data.

[Coghlan et al.] target one animal and one plant marker and “genetically audit” the samples by sequencing the heck out of them using a bench-top HTS, the Roche GS Junior. Their protocol produced 49,000 sequence fragments. They then compare their sequences to large databases containing sequences of known origin and thus, identify what’s in the TCM.

To learn what the group found, go read the whole thing.◼