Virome
In the 2000s, virologist Forest Rohwer performed gene sequencing on samples of seawater, soil, and human tissue. The studies revealed that the gene diversity of viruses globally is massive and mostly unrecorded. More research in the 2010s showed that the gut virome of humans is of special interest in human medicine. Scientists sort nucleic acids from the other components of viruses, and then analyze them. The large number of different viruses on Earth makes completing the Earth’s virome difficult. As of November 2018, a large virus database held information on 760,000 individual viruses and virus parts.