PLANeT: Understanding and leveraging the genome of land plants for a sustainable future
Summary
Land plants underpin civilization and planetary health, yet their genomic diversity remains largely uncharted. Current resources are unstandardized and scarce, lacking reference genomes for 95% of genera, 70% of families, and 51% of orders, impeding evolutionary and functional insight. We thus propose the PLANeT initiative, an international effort to generate high-quality, standardized genomes across the plant tree of life. Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) with genomics, we will de
Content
# PLANeT: Understanding and leveraging the genome of land plants for a sustainable future
*Published: 2026 Apr 30*
Land plants underpin civilization and planetary health, yet their genomic
diversity remains largely uncharted. Current resources are unstandardized and
scarce, lacking reference genomes for 95% of genera, 70% of families, and 51% of
orders, impeding evolutionary and functional insight. We thus propose the PLANeT
initiative, an international effort to generate high-quality, standardized
genomes across the plant tree of life. Integrating artificial intelligence (AI)
with genomics, we will decode conserved principles to advance fundamental plant
biology, biodiversity conservation, crop improvement, and natural product
discovery. Engaging around 100 labs to train 1,000 scientists, we will tackle
pivotal questions for a sustainable future.
DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2026.01.026