This is TED Health, a podcast from TED, and I'm your host, Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter.

In this week's episode, I'm joined by Dr. Eric Green, a doctor and researcher who's helped shape one of the biggest scientific shifts of our time.

Dr. Green was there at the beginning of the Human Genome Project, the international effort that

first launched in 1990 and then sequenced human DNA 13 years later. His work helped the medical

community shift from studying DNA in small pieces to reading and using the entire human genome.

This breakthrough has allowed doctors to see a patient's full genetic picture,

understand what makes each person unique, and deliver more accurate diagnoses, better treatments,

and earlier prevention. Until last March, Dr. Green led the National Human Genome Research

Institute at the National Institutes of Health. Now in 2026, he begins a new chapter.

He became the chief medical officer at the biotechnology company Illumina earlier this year,

where he'll help think through the future of genomic science and its role in medicine.

Today, the cost of genomic analyses has dropped from hundreds of millions of dollars to just hundreds of

dollars. And our developments aren't just financial. We now live in a world where reading DNA

can help guide cancer treatment and long diagnostic odysses for patients and families,

and even raise new questions about whether we might be able to sequence DNA much earlier in life.

In our conversation today, Dr. Green walks us through that first era of sequencing the human genome

up to where we are now. But before we dive Shoshan. It's great to be here.

So I want to start and make sure that we're all on the same page for what I think is going to be a

fascinating conversation. And so before we dig into this, for somebody listening who has

heard the term, but has never had it explained clearly, what is genomics in plain English?

And how is it different from genetics?

I'll just give a teeny bit of history because I think

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