The Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics

Many visitors to the American Museum of Natural History remain unaware of how much scientific work actually gets done in those grand buildings on the Upper West Side. Most of that research happens out of public view, in places like the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics, home to more than 70 scientists and technicians reading the grand story of evolution in the genes of countless animals, plants, viruses, and bacteria. Given the chance to peek behind the laboratory doors, we were struck by the boundless enthusiasm and passion of the researchers ("I have the best job in the world," we heard multiple times) and the way in which one of the great intellectual endeavors of our time --- complete with all sorts of cool paraphernalia like liquid nitrogen storage tanks, lasers, jaguar scat samples, and tubes of malaria --- is simply a mundane reality.