Returning to more finished genomes

Genomic data have become commonplace in most branches of the biological sciences and have fundamentally altered the way research is conducted. However, the predominance of short-read sequence data from secondgeneration sequencing technologies has commonly resulted in fragmented and partial genomic data characteristics. In this opinion, I will highlight how long, unbiased reads from single molecule, real-time (SMRT) sequencing now allow for a return to more contiguous and comprehensive views of genomes. (C) 2014 The Author. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license.