George McDonald Church studied DNA from living and from extinct species in the US during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Church helped to develop and refine techniques with which to describe the complete sequence of all the DNA nucleotides in an organism's genome, techniques such as multiplex sequencing, polony sequencing, and nanopore sequencing. Church also contributed to the Human Genome Project, and in 2005 he helped start a company, the Personal Genome Project. Church proposed to use DNA from extinct species to clone and breed new organisms from those species.

In 2020, Frans Schutgens and Hans Clevers published “Human Organoids: Tools for Understanding Biology and Treating Diseases,” hereafter “Human Organoids,” in the journal Annual Review of Pathology: Mechanisms of Disease. Organoids are miniature, three-dimensional structures that closely mimic the structure and function of a specific organ. Scientists make organoids in the lab using stem cells, which are a type of cell that has the ability to replicate themselves or to develop into various cell types in the body. “Human Organoids” is a review article that describes the use of human organoids as tools for understanding development, the biological processes that occur in the body, and the treatment of diseases and disorders. “Human Organoids” provided researchers with an in-depth resource on the use of organoids for disease modeling, finding new treatments for various forms of cancer, and treating genetic conditions.