Why not mark 20 years of DNA barcoding by scraping bugs off your windshield?

Twenty years ago, DNA barcoding gave us the ability to catalogue all life on planet Earth. 

Since then it's been used for everything from preventing food fraud to tracking cancer cell immunity. So, where could the next decades take us? 

Paul Hebert, the University of Guelph researcher who coined the term DNA barcoding, told CBC Kitchener-Waterloo's The Morning Edition's host Craig Norris what he's excited to see happen in the future. 

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Craig Norris: What is DNA barcoding?

Paul Hebert: We all think about those things on the store shelves — the little string of numbers that we use to tell them apart and to manage inventory. And that's basically the same approach that we've brought to telling apart the species that share our planet.

Genomes are big. Yours is about seven billion base pairs long. But if I read about 600 of those base pairs, I can tell you from any other species on the planet, I can prove you're human without question.

So that was the the base of the idea, but of course lots of good ideas fail as soon as they begin to collect data. So we started to collect data and, at least in my backyard, it didn't fail. 

So we got a bit bold and suggested that it might be possible to create an identification system for the species on our planet by reading tiny slices of DNA.

WATCH | 'We are at risk of erasing the books of life': Biologists work to chronicle life on earth: 

'We are at risk of erasing the books of life': Biologists work to chronicle life on earth

6 years ago

Duration 4:15

According to biologists, species are going extinct 1000 times faster than the historical average. An international project led by Canada is setting out to identify every plant and animal on the planet, to build a library of life.

CN: Since that first research paper, what work has been done with DNA barcoding?

PH: It's pretty remarkable actually. Canada's invested substantial funds to create a core facility here in Canada — the first one of the world. And we're now joined by researchers in 41 nations around the world and we're leading these major projects that are using this approach to inventory life on our planet. 

So we're heading toward the first mega science project in biodiversity — that's a billion dollar project — and we're two-thirds of the way in right now. 

CN: Has it been concerning to you to see some species that were recorded in your library end up going extinct or endangered?

PH: Absolutely. And the bigger issue is we're living on a planet where 90 per cent of the multicellular organisms haven't yet been registered in the catalogue of life.

So in essence, we're burning the books of life without reading them. So it's a great concern to me and my colleagues around the world. 

CN: The Centre for Biodiversity Genomics is hoping to to make sampling kits available this year for people to use in the act of "splatology." What is it? 

PH:  About a year ago, I drove up to Ottawa. I had to go up for a meeting, and as I drove I thought, why not sample?

So I cleaned my car windscreen before I left and it didn't rain on the way up or the way back. And then I wiped down the window screen after I got back and I took a look at the diversity of bugs that contributed to the splatter on my windscreen, and I was a bit surprised that I had intercepted and killed more than 400 species of insects.

CN: Where do you see this citizen scientist work going in relation to your work?

PH: I'm a granddad and I love going out with my grandson. Just walking through the woods and seeing organisms, any organism you see, just touching it with this barcode device and having it identified and telling you everything humanity knows about that particular species. 

I think that begins to get us closer to nature, connecting with nature and realizing that we really don't wanna lose the majestic diversity of life that we share this planet with. 

We've had school kids in the past serving biodiversity in their school yards. We'd love to see a program like that rolled out again on an even larger scale — every kid reading life in in their school yards, these sorts of things. 

And of course there's lots of practical applications for this, this technology in terms of food fraud.

CN: Do you think this work ever ends, cataloging?

PH: We do have an end in mind. 

Those of us in the Biodiversity Science Committee have been chasing, trying to register the diversity of life since 1750 or so. We believe by the midst of this century we will have completed the inventory. But the that's not the end game. 

The end game is establishing a global biosurveillance system where humanity is tracking life on the planet, just like we track weather, so that we can make sure that we don't do something really bad to life support system. 

We're doing quite enough bad already. We want to see those trends reversed. But humanity is not on a mission to destroy itself or the life on its planet. And we're sure that humanity will take care of life better if we bring bioliteracy to humans. And that's our mission.

LISTEN | DNA barcoding has existed for 20 years. Here's where the creator of the term wants to see it go in the future: